Mean Trial: Iran Executes Woman Who Killed Her Alleged Rapist

Iran has hanged a woman convicted of murdering a man she said was trying to rape her. The official IRNA news agency says Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged at dawn Saturday for premeditated murder. It quoted the court ruling as rejecting the claim of attempted rape and saying all evidence proved that Jabbari had plotted to kill Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former intelligence agent. The court ruling says Jabbari, 27, stabbed Sarbandi in the back in 2007 after purchasing a knife two days earlier.

The execution was carried out after Sarbandi's family refused to pardon Jabbari or accept blood money. Amnesty International and other human rights groups had called on Iran's judiciary to halt the execution. Jabbari was sentenced to death by a criminal court in Tehran in 2009 after what Amnesty International called a 'deeply flawed investigation and trial which failed to examine all of the evidence'.

The date of her execution has been repeatedly delayed but Jabbari's mother Shole Pakravan received a phone call on Friday telling her to visit her daughter in prison for the last time as she would be hanged on Saturday.

Amnesty International issued a failed last-ditch plea to the government to spare her life. 'This abhorrent execution must not be allowed to take place, particularly when there are serious doubts about the circumstances of the killing,' said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International.

'Instead of continuing to execute people, authorities in Iran should reform their judicial system, which dangerously relies on processes which fail to meet international law and standards for fair trial. Under international human rights standards people charged with crimes punishable by death are entitled to the strictest observance of all fair trial guarantees.'

Jabbari's mother has previously given emotional interviews discussing her daughter's plight and begging the Iranian government to spare her life. Speaking earlier this month via Skype to Fox News, Pakravan said: 'I wish they would come tie a rope around my neck and kill me instead, but to allow Rayhaneh to come back home.'
'The only thing I want ... from God, from people around the world ... in any way, in any form, is I just want to bring Rayhaneh back home,' she added.

Credits: AFP/Mailonline