Iranian man hanged 'for the second time' after his family fails to produce 'blood money'

An Iranian man faced execution for the second time months after surviving a previous attempt that had been stopped around half a minute in, as per Iran Human Rights (IHR), a Norway-based NGO which tracks executions in Iran.

According to IHR, 26-year-old Ahmad Alizadeh was arrested and sentenced to death in October 2018 on a murder charge, a crime he denied committing.

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The first attempt to execute Ahmad Alizadeh was carried out on April 27 at Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj, near Tehran. During this execution, he was hanged for 28 seconds before the victim’s family shouted "forgiveness," which led officials to bring him down.

Afterwards, prison staff attempted CPR on his "lifeless" body, successfully reviving him and the first execution was called off, said IHR.

Under Iran’s sharia law, the victim’s family has the right to either forgive or demand financial compensation from the family of the person who committed the murder, known as "blood money." As per the activists, many families are unable to pay the amount demanded, which can result in the execution proceeding.

Without a blood money agreement, Alizadeh remained on death row. This week, on Wednesday (Nov 13) morning, authorities executed him again in the same prison, according to IHR.

"Ahmad Alizadeh, a talented student, was hanged for the second time on charges of murder, which he denied and claimed he confessed to under torture," IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said, who condemned Iran’s "execution machine of the Iranian regime."

Amiry-Moghaddam previously said, "In addition to the inhumanity of the death penalty, and the lack of a fair trial in this case, Ahmad Alizadeh experienced this cruel and humiliating punishment once, and his re-execution is a crime according to all international standards."

Activists argue that Iran uses executions to intimidate its population, particularly following the protests that challenged the government from 2022 to 2023. In 2024, Iran saw a sharp increase in executions, with IHR reporting at least 166 in October alone, marking the highest monthly count since the NGO began tracking executions in 2007.

(With inputs from agencies)