Juvenile Offender Salar Shadizadi’s Execution Date Changed
Juvenile offender Salar Shadizadi’s execution has been postponed to 10 August. He remains at imminent risk of execution after a conviction for murder. He was 15 years old at the time of the crime.
Salar Shadizadi’s execution in Lakan Prison, Rasht, northern Iran, has been postponed for 10 days from the initial date of 1 August to 10 August. The change occurred late on 31 July. He remains in solitary confinement.
Salar Shadizadi was arrested in February 2007 and charged with the murder of a friend. He was not granted access to a lawyer at the investigative stage and was only allowed to retain a lawyer when his case was sent to court for trial. He says that he was also tortured and otherwise ill-treated during the investigative stage when he was held in the Investigation Unit (Agahi) in Rasht. He was first sentenced to death in December 2007 under the Islamic principle of qesas (retribution-in-kind) by Branch 11 of the Criminal Court of Appeal in Gilan province, which sat as a court of first-instance. Branch 37 of the Supreme Court upheld the sentence three months later.
In 2013, Salar Shadizadi submitted a request for judicial review based on a new article in Iran’s revised Penal Code, passed into law in May 2013. Branch 13 of Iran’s Supreme Court accepted the request for judicial review and sent the case back to the court of first instance to examine Salar Shadizadi’s maturity at the time of the crime. The court then referred Salar Shadizadi to Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization (LMO) for psychological examination. The LMO found that “there is no evidence to conclude that Salar Shadizadi was insane at the time of the crime but examining his mental growth seven years after the event is impossible.” Based on this finding, Branch 13 of the Supreme Court upheld the original death sentence.
Please write immediately in Persian, English, Spanish, French or your own language:
n Urging the Iranian authorities to immediately halt the execution of Salar Shadizadi and ensure that his death sentence is quashed and he is granted a retrial that complies with international fair trial standards, without recourse to the death penalty;
n Reminding them that Iran has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, both of which strictly prohibit the use of the death penalty for crimes committed by persons below the age of 18.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 14 SEPTEMBER 2015 TO:
Leader of the Islamic Republic
Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
The Office of the Supreme Leader
Islamic Republic Street- End of Shahid Keshvar Doust Street
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: via website http://www.leader.ir/langs/en/index.php?
p=letter
Twitter: @khamenei_ir (English) or @Khamenei_es (Spanish)
Salutation: Your Excellency
Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani
c/o Public Relations Office
Number 4, 2 Azizi Street intersection
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: [email protected]
Salutation: Your Excellency
And copies to:
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Hassan Rouhani
The Presidency
Pasteur Street, Pasteur Square
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Twitter: @HassanRouhani (English) @Rouhani_ir (Persian)