Iranian authorities execute a man accused of killing a police officer in Zarandieh [Getty]
A man was executed in Iran on Wednesday for the murder of a police officer in a central part of the country, the judiciary’s official news agency reported.
“The killer intentionally ran over the police commander of the city of Zarandieh with his car while he was stopping smugglers on the side of a highway,” Mizan Online said.
The incident occurred on May 30, 2023, in central Iran’s Markazi province, according to the agency.
The defendant was sentenced to death under an Iranian law applied in murder cases when the victim’s family requests the death penalty.
“The victim’s parents refused to forgive the killer and the death sentence was carried out in Saveh prison this morning,” Mizan reported.
Iran carries out the second highest number of executions worldwide per year after China, according to human rights groups including Amnesty International.
Capital punishment is applied in Iran for major crimes including murder, drug trafficking, rape and sexual assault.
In December, Iranian authorities executed a man convicted of assaulting dozens of women in Tehran.
According to NGOs, Iran executed at least 31 women in 2024 and warned that female prisoners were increasingly being caught in a surge in the use of capital punishment in the Islamic republic.
Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), which closely tracks executions in Iran, said in a report that the figure for 2024 marked the highest number of women to be hanged in Iran since it started documenting the use of capital punishment in 2008.
Activists are increasingly alarmed over the surge in hangings in Iran, accusing the Islamic authorities under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of using capital punishment as a tool to instil fear throughout society particularly in the wake of 2022-2023 nationwide protests, triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
