Iran has executed a woman who killed a man she said was trying to sexually abuse her, in defiance of an international campaign to spare her life.
Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, was hanged at dawn on Saturday in a Tehran prison for the murder of a former intelligence official, the official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.
A message posted on the homepage of a Facebook campaign that was set up to try to save her, but which now states “rest in peace,” confirmed the report.
Jabbari, an interior designer, had spent five years on death row for the stabbing of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi in 2007. The UN and groups including Amnesty International had said her confession was obtained under intense pressure and threats from Iranian prosecutors, and she should have had a retrial.
Ahmed Shaheed, the UN’s human rights rapporteur on Iran, said in April that the killing was an act of self defence: Sarbandi had offered to hire Jabbari to redesign his office and took her to an apartment where he tried to sexually abuse her.
Iranian actors and other prominent figures had appealed for a stay of execution, echoing similar calls in the west.
Efforts for clemency had intensified in recent weeks. Jabbari’s mother was allowed to visit her for one hour on Friday, Amnesty said, a custom that tends to precede executions in Iran.
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/25/iran-reyhaneh-jabbari-executes-appeals
