Execution of Afghan Child Offender Confirmed in Qom Prison
The news website “Haalosh” confirmed with the release of documents that Mohammad Hossein Alizadeh, an Afghan national whose execution was recently carried out in Qom prison, was a child offender at the time of his arrest.
In images of Mr. Alizadeh’s prison records, as well as the court verdict and judgment that “Haalosh” published on Wednesday, September 9, he is identified as being born in 1380, an Afghan national, and resident of Qom city.
Mr. Alizadeh was arrested in 1396, when he was 16 years old, on charges of knife murder during a street brawl, and was imprisoned in Qom prison until his execution was carried out on August 19.
According to reports, this child offender previously stated that he was forced to confess to the murder under “torture, coercion, threats, beatings and abuse,” and added: “I do not accept the murder. The knife belongs to me, but I don’t remember if I stabbed anyone with it or not. I was not in a normal state; I had been drinking.”
Despite these statements, in the text of the Supreme Court’s ruling that was released, it stated: “A panel of five experts in neurology, psychiatry and forensic medicine announced that the aforementioned individual suffers from conduct disorder and aggressiveness and irritability, but possesses the ability to distinguish right from wrong and benefit from harm, and has mental and intellectual development appropriate for his age, and no evidence was found indicating that at the time of committing the crime, he could not distinguish right from wrong.”
Iran is one of the few countries where sentences and executions of child offenders are issued and carried out, and according to the announcement of the “Iran Human Rights Organization,” existing statistics show that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been responsible for 70 percent of child executions over the past three decades worldwide.
According to this organization’s report, since 2010, at least 63 child offenders have been executed in Iran, with at least two of these executions carried out in 2021 and four in the year before that.
The laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran set the age of criminal punishment for children at 15 years for boys and 9 years for girls, and despite Iran’s accession to the Convention on the Rights of the Child approximately 27 years ago, the execution of child offenders in the country continues.
Under these laws, Iran’s death sentences for children under 18 years of age are temporarily suspended until they reach the legal age, but are not abolished, and after the defendant reaches the legal age, if the victims’ heirs do not pardon, that person is sentenced to execution.
The UN General Assembly approved a resolution condemning the human rights situation in Iran last December. Among the issues that were expressed concern about in this resolution was the continuation of capital punishment in the Islamic Republic of Iran for individuals under the legal age, and the Iranian government was asked to stop carrying out executions against children.
The Third Committee of the UN General Assembly also, last November, while condemning widespread and systematic human rights violations in Iran, expressed serious concern about the continuation of capital punishment in the Islamic Republic of Iran for individuals under the legal age, and called for an end to this process.
Source: Radio Farda
