Tehran, Iran (BBN)-Iran has executed a woman who killed a man she said was trying to sexually abuse her, her mother says.
Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, was hanged in a Tehran prison despite an international campaign urging a reprieve, reports BBC.
Jabbari was arrested in 2007 for the murder of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former employee of Iran’s ministry of intelligence.
Human rights group Amnesty International said she was convicted after a deeply flawed investigation.
A campaign calling for a halt to the execution was launched on Facebook and Twitter last month and appeared to have brought a temporary stay in execution.
However, government news agency Tasnim said on Saturday that Jabbari had been executed after her relatives failed to gain consent from the victim’s family for a reprieve.
It said her claims of self-defence had not been proved in court.
Her mother, Shole Pakravan, confirmed the execution in an interview with BBC Persian, saying she was going to the cemetery to see her daughter’s body.
Amnesty said that although Jabbari admitted to stabbing Abdolali Sarbandi once in the back, she alleged that there was someone else in the house who actually killed him.
After her arrest, she was placed in solitary confinement for two months, where she reportedly did not have access to a lawyer or her family.
She was sentenced to death by a criminal court in Tehran in 2009.
BBN/JF-25Oct14-1:00pm (BST)
