12 October 2021 :
Urgent: Juvenile Offender Arman Abdolali Scheduled to be Executed in 24 Hours.
Death row juvenile offender Arman Abdolali has been transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for his execution. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, he is due to be executed on Wednesday, October 13.
Iran Human Rights calls on the international community to take action to save Arman Abdolali’s life. “Execution of a juvenile offender is a serious violation of international law. At this point, only pressure from the international community can save Arman’s life. We call on states who have diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic to take action to save Arman’s life before it’s too late,” said Iran Human Rights Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.
Arman Abdolali is a juvenile offender who was arrested on murder charges in 2013. He confessed to the murder at the time of his arrest, but the body was never found and he later withdrew his confession.
The preliminary court had sentenced Arman for murder without taking into consideration that he was a juvenile offender.
Days prior to his execution, Arman’s lawyer found out that Ghazaleh (the victim) had been issued with a leave of absence by her university and her insurance policy had been renewed and used them as evidence to request a retrial.
Two of the judges who had previously sentenced Arman to qisas, opined that further investigations would be required in light of the fact that the letter from her university was dated after the murder was alleged to have taken place. Meanwhile, Ghazaleh’s family gave Arman an extension and opportunity to reveal the location of the body.
His retrial was heard before Branch 5 of the Criminal Court when he was studying for his master’s degree at Shahid Modarres University. Once again, he denied the murder and stated that he did not know where her body was and that she might be alive.
His case was later referred to the Tehran Criminal Court, which found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to qisas. The sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in February this year.
