January 17, 2025
An Ahvaz court has sentenced an anti-regime protester to death for killing a nine-year-old boy, although the boy’s mother says the twice-convicted man isn’t the person who shot her son. The killing of nine-year-old Kian Pirfalak November 16, 2022, got considerable media attention, including in the Iran Times, at the time as he was one of the youngest to die in the protests that had erupted weeks earlier over the death in police captivity of Mahsa Amini the protests that became known internationally as the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.
Young Kian was in the family car in Izeh when it was caught in a large crowd pouring down the street. Kian’s father tried to drive passed a security vehicle when shots rang out. Kian’s mother said men in the security vehicle sprayed the family car and hit Kian.
Two months later, the police arrested Abbas Korkor at another protest in Izeh after they shot him in the leg. They then charged him with the murder of Kian. A revolutionary court found Korkor guilty of moharebeh and corruption on earth, Qoranic offenses that carry the death penalty.
The Supreme Court, however, vacated the conviction and sent the case back to be heard before another judge in Khuzestan province. On December 29, that judge convicted Korkor again and sentenced him again to death, despite the testimony of the victim’s mother.
