February 18, 2022
Iran’s Supreme Court has up-held death sentences for adultery against a 27-year-old man and his 33-year-old lover after the man’s father-in-law denied them clemency, the Reformist daily Sharq reported.
The man’s wife, who presented police with video evidence of her husband’s infidelity last year, had asked the courts to spare the pair the death penalty, Sharq said.
But her father demanded the death sentence be imposed and the court found in his favor, the paper said.
Iranian law provides that if a victim’s family forgives the accused in a capital crime, the convict can be either pardoned or given a prison sentence.
Under the interpretation of Sharia law in force since Iran’s 1979 revolution, adultery is punishable by stoning. But Tehran changed the law in 2013 to allow judges to order an alternative method of execution, usually hanging. The trial court sentenced the man and woman to be stoned; the Supreme Court changed the sentence to hanging, IranWire reported.
It said the offending couple were arrested on the wife’s complaint. The wife soon withdrew her complaint, saying she and her husband had not been intimate for six months.
According to Amnesty International, Iran carried out 246 executions last year, just one in public.
