Dubai, UAE — Authorities in central Iran on Monday publicly hanged a man who was convicted in the shooting death of a lawyer, the country's official judicial news agency said.
The man, who was not identified, had been convicted of fatally shooting the lawyer with a hunting rifle in front of his wife and son in the city of Shahroud in the northern Semnan province in August 2021, the Mizan news agency said.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency said the man was 20 and had confessed to having been hired by a gang to kill the lawyer. No further details were provided.
Monday's execution was carried out in accordance with the Islamic Sharia law of "retribution," IRNA reported.
It was the first public hanging of the year in Iran, according to the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights, which tracks executions in the country. The group's director, Mahmoud Amiri Moghaddam, urged the international community to condemn such public executions.
Iran typically carries out executions by hanging inside prisons, often for the crime of drug smuggling, Iran Human Rights says. The country executed 500 convicts in 2022, the group says.
In 2022, Iran publicly hanged a man convicted of fatally stabbing two members of a paramilitary force during violence connected with nationwide protests challenging the country’s theocracy.
Iran executes more people annually than any other nation except for China, according to rights groups including Amnesty International.
