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Reyhaneh Jabbari speaks to defend herself during a trial in December 2008.

Iran hangs woman for murder despite international pressure to spare her

A 26-year-old Iranian woman convicted of murdering a man she accused of trying to rape her as a teenager was hanged, the official news agency IRNA said, despite international pleas for her life to be spared.

AFP

A 26-year-old Iranian woman convicted of murdering a man she accused of trying to rape her as a teenager was hanged yesterday, the official news agency IRNA said, despite international pleas for her life to be spared.

Reyhaneh Jabbari walked to the gallows at dawn in Tehran's Evin prison after failing to secure a reprieve from the murder victim's relatives within the 10-day deadline set by sharia law in force since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.Justice Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said in early October that a "good ending" was in sight but official media reported later that the slain man's family could not be persuaded to approve leniency for Jabbari.

Jabbari was sentenced to death in accordance with Koranic "qisas", or eye for an eye, law after being found guilty of stabbing dead an older man with a kitchen knife in 2007.

She had pleaded self-defence but failed to sway judges at various stages of appeal and had been kept in prison since her arrest.

Immediately after the execution, the Tehran state prosecutor's office issued a statement that appeared aimed at countering sympathy for Jabbari.

"Jabbari had repeatedly confessed to premeditated murder, then tried to divert the case from its course by inventing the rape charge," said the statement carried by IRNA.

The US State Department issued a statement that cited "serious concerns with the fairness" of her trial, including "reports of confessions made under severe duress".

Britain voiced similar concerns and called on the Islamic republic to halt its use of the death penalty.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Woman hanged for murder despite outcry
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