Iran: Further information on death penalty / legal concern: Delara Darabi (f)
01 August 2006
Further Information on 04/06 (MDE 13/001/2006, 06 January 2006) Death penalty/
legal concern
IRAN Delara Darabi (f), aged 19, child offender
Delara Darabi, has reportedly been sentenced to death for a second time after
her case was retried. She is at risk of imminent execution for a murder which
took place when she was 17 years old.
Delara Darabi was initially sentenced to death by a lower court in the northern
city of Rasht, and according to press reports, the Supreme Court had upheld the
death sentence. However, new reports suggested that the sentence was rejected
in January 2006 by Branch 33 of the Supreme Court and that her case was sent
for retrial. It is unclear whether Delara Darabi was retried by Branch 107 of
the Special Court for Children or the General Court in Rasht. However,
following two trial sessions in January 2006 and on 15 June, Delara Darabi was
reportedly sentenced to death (qesas or retribution).
According to reports Delara Darabi and a 19-year-old man named Amir Hossein
broke into a woman’s house to commit a burglary. Amir Hossein allegedly killed
the woman during the burglary. Delara Darabi initially confessed to the murder,
but subsequently retracted her confession. She claims that Amir Hossein asked
her to admit responsibility for the murder to protect him from execution,
believing that as she was under the age of 18, she could not be sentenced to
death. Iran is a state party to international treaties that expressly prohibit
the use of the death penalty for crimes committed by those under the age of 18.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
As a state party to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Iran has
undertaken not to execute anyone for an offence committed when they were under
the age of 18. Despite this, since 1990 Iran has executed at least 18 people
for crimes committed when they were children.
In January 2005 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child urged
Iran to suspend the practice immediately. Nevertheless at least eight child
offenders were executed that year, including two who were still under 18 at the
time of their execution. On 13 May, Iran carried out the first known execution
of a child offender in 2006. An unnamed 17-year-old male was executed by
hanging, along with an unnamed 20-year old male, in Khorramabad, the capital of
Lorestan province. According to reports, they had been sentenced to death for
the rape and murder of a 12-year-old boy.
Children are still being sentenced to death in Iran. On 3 January, 18-year-old
Nazanin was sentenced to death for murder by a criminal court, after she
reportedly admitted stabbing to death one of three men who attempted to rape
her and her 16-year-old niece in a park in Karaj in March 2005. She was 17 at
the time. (See Iran: Amnesty International calls for end to death penalty for
child offenders, MDE 13/005/2006, 16 January 2006). At the end of May the
Supreme Court rejected the death sentence against Nazanin, reportedly on the
instructions of the Head of the Judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi.
The case will reportedly be retried in August and sent to a lower court for
further investigation.
In March 18-year-old Mehdi was reportedly sentenced to death for killing a man
in Robat Karim, Tehran Province about two years previously, when he was aged
either 16 or 17. His brother was imprisoned for his involvement in the killing.
A man known only as Mohammad was sentenced to death by Branch 71 of Tehran’s
Criminal Court, for a murder reportedly committed when he was 16. He had
originally been sentenced by a Children’s Court to five years’ imprisonment and
the payment of blood money. However, two years later, when he reached the age
of 18, the Supreme Court announced that he had reached the age of majority and
could now be tried in a criminal court, which sentenced him to death. When the
sentence came before it for approval in April 2006, the Supreme Court rejected
it on the basis that the crime was committed when he was under the age of 18.
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