February 18, 2022
Two brothers living in Ahvaz have been arrested for beheading the wife of one of the brothers.
The killing got massive attention as someone posted video on social media of the smiling and barefooted husband standing with his wife’s bloody head in one hand and a knife in the other.
The crime has received inordinate attention across Iran because of the video posting and the man’s attitude in the video while walking around with his wife’s severed head. Hardline media, however, ignored the story, except for the daily Javan, which is linked to the Pasdaran.
The murder was an honor killing, but the initial news reports only cited “family problems” as the likely reason for the husband killing his 17-year-old wife, Mona Heydari.
Police did not release the names of her accused killers, but IranWire said the husband was Sajjad Heydari.
The Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) said the brothers were arrested four hours after the killing February 5. It quoted police Colonel Sohrab Hossain-nejad as saying, “The defendants confessed to the murder.”
The husband and wife were cousins. They were married when she was 12. She was the mother of a three-year-old when she was killed.
News reports said the woman had left her husband and fled to Turkey and that her father had gone to Turkey and brought her home. Some reports said she had fled because it was discovered that she was having an affair with another man. Other reports said she fled because her husband regularly beat her.
Meanwhile, the Press Supervisory Board ordered the closure of the Rokna news agency for publishing the video with the bloody head, saying Rokna had breached “public decency” and acted “in contradiction with society’s mental hygiene.”
