Iran has executed a man convicted of ‘corruption of earth’ for attacking dozens of women on the capital’s streets, its judiciary said today.
Rastgooei Kandolaj attacked at least 59 women using an awl, a woodworking tool, causing injuries and sowing ‘terror in Tehran’, the judiciary’s Mizen Online news website announced.
Multiple women had reported that the assailant was masked and riding a motorcycle when he carried out the attacks in November 2018, Mizan said. The report did not specify when Kandolaj was arrested.
He was handed down a death sentence after being convicted of the capital offence ‘corruption on earth’, Mizan said.
“The death sentence of… Rastgooei Kandolaj, who injured women and girls with an awl and created terror in Tehran, was carried out,” it said.
Kandolaj had appealed the case and requested a retrial, but was shot down by the Supreme Court, which backed the original verdict.
Iran uses capital punishment for major crimes including murder and drug trafficking, as well as rape and sexual assault.
The Islamic republic executes more people per year than any other nation except China, for which no reliable figures are available, according to human rights groups including Amnesty International.
According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), 2024 is seeing a new surge in executions, with at least 166 executions recorded in October alone, the highest number recorded in a single month since the group began documenting executions in 2007.
Hanging is the most common method of execution in Iran and has been the preferred approach since the late 1980s.
Harrowing images and videos have shown how some of those sentenced to death are hanged from cranes, making their death slow and painful as they are hoisted up by a noose and strangled, intended as an example to others.
Crowds are encouraged to watch as the killings are carried out, with multiple executions often put on at once and the horrific scenes even televised.
According to the Iranian Penal Code, hanging can also be combined with other forms of punishment, such as flogging, amputation, or crucifixion.
Activists accuse Iran of using the death penalty as a means to instill fear throughout society, particularly in the wake of 2022-2023 nationwide protests which shook the Islamic authorities.
Rights groups like Amnesty International say Iran carries out more annual executions than any country other than China, for which no reliable figures are available.
Executions conducted in public with a crane have been more rare in recent years, though Iran used the same manner of hanging to put down unrest following the disputed 2009 presidential election and the Green Movement protests that followed.
Typically, those condemned are alive as the crane lifts them off their feet, hanging by a rope and struggling to breathe before they asphyxiate or their neck breaks.Public hangings are nothing new. In England in the 1800s, events could attract thousands, or tens of thousands, of viewers with a perverse fascination in watching the brutal death.
In a scathing criticism of capital punishment, French philosopher Albert Camus noted that the spectacle of brutal killings did not seem to deter criminals; hangings often attracted as many pickpockets, drawn to the large crowds of people.
Of 167 condemned inmates at Bristol prison in 1886, 164 had themselves watched the horrific means of execution already.Still, it took more horror stories before Britain abolished the penalty formally in 1998. In 1953, British man Derek Bentley was hanged for the murder of a policeman during a burglary attempt. Aged 19, the man was hanged at Wandsworth Prison.
After wide debate, Bentley was later pardoned and proven innocent. The complexities of the case, including views on Bentley’s learning difficulties, created public outrage at the time, before the abolition nearly 50 years alter.
Even today, with advances in forensic evidence gathering and justice, for every eight people executed, one person on death row has been exonerated – leaving countless potentially wrongfully sent to their deaths.
Which crimes warrant the death penalty in Iran?
A wide range of offences are punishable by death in Iran.
These include:
Murder
Sexual offences such as ‘fornication’, ‘adultery’, ‘sodomy’, ‘lesbianism’, incest and rape.
Drinking alcohol (repeat offenders)
Theft (repeat offenders)
Drug trafficking
Cursing the prophet’
Waging war’ on people or God and ‘corruption on earth’
Armed robbery
Political opposition or espionage
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