Iran Executes Man Jailed for Murder at 17 Despite UN Appeals

(Bloomberg) -- Iran executed a man who was charged with murder when he was 17 years old, state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported, ignoring a UN-backed campaign by rights groups calling on authorities to abide by international law and commute his death sentence.

Arman Abdolali was a juvenile when he was arrested and subsequently sentenced to death for killing his girlfriend, Ghazaleh Shakoor, in 2014. According to IRNA, a retrial and numerous other efforts to secure support for a pardon from Shakoor’s family failed and Abdolali was hanged early Wednesday. 

On Oct. 12, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights urgently appealed to Iran to halt his execution, citing reports he’d been tortured and ill-treated while in solitary confinement when still a teenager.    

Executing children is unequivocally banned under international law and Iran is one of just a handful of countries that applies the death penalty to minors, according to the London-based human rights group Amnesty International. 

The Islamic Republic is the world’s second-most prolific executioner after China and since 2020 has hanged four people who were under 18 at the time of their offense, according to Amnesty. 

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