3 Men Executed for Murder and Drug Charges in Sabzevar

According to HRANA news agency, a man was executed in Sabzevar Prison on 3 January. His identity has been established as Amir Ahmadzadeh who was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder.

Two other men were also executed at the prison on 22 December 2023. Their identities were reported as 46-year-old Mehdi Keyvanlu and 42-year-old Hashem Zoorabadi. Mehdi was on death row for drug-related charges and Hashem for murder.

At the time of writing, none of their executions have been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

On 21 December, IHRNGO warned of more drug executions being carried out after an Iranian MP from Lorestan province stated that the cases of 1000-2000 drug death row inmates were at implementation stage.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year for the past three years. At least 305 people were executed for drug-related charges between 1 January-10 October 2023, a 69% increase compared to the same period in 2022, and the number of drug-related executions in 2023 were close to 20 times higher than 2020.

The number of drug executions dramatically dropped in 2018 following a 2017 Amendment to the Anti-Narcotics Laws. Consequently, drug executions ranged between 24-30 per annum between 2018-2020. The Amendment was reversed in practice in 2021 when executions increased ten-fold to 126 in 2021 and doubled again in 2022 with 256 drug-related executions. On 13 September 2023, IHRNGO reported a 94% rise in the number of drug-related executions in the year following the start of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in September 2022.