Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged at dawn on Saturday.
On Saturday, Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged for murdering a man she said was trying to rape her.
She was arrested in 2007 for the murder of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a 47-year-old former employee of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence, whom she'd met when she was just 19. According to the New York Times, she stabbed him with a penknife in the back while praying. She said this only happened after he drugged and attempted to rape her.
Amnesty International said that although Jabbari admitted to stabbing him once, she always claimed it wasn't her that actually killed him. The organisation described the investigation as "deeply flawed" and said she had only confessed after being tortured. Sarbandi's eldest son, Jalal Sarbandi, said he'd only be prepared to "grant mercy" once she had identified the individual. A petition to stop the hanging attracted nearly 200,000 signatures.
AP Photo/Golara Sajjadian
We are devastated that Reyhaneh was denied justice and are deeply saddened that a family has lost their daughter today. The death penalty is a horrific form of punishment that should never be used in Iran, or anywhere else.
Iranian activists are now circulating a transcript of a voicemail she reportedly left for her mother.
According to the transcript, she says she would have been killed had she not stabbed Sarbandi:
My body would have been thrown in some corner of the city. And after a few days, the police would have taken you to the coroner's office to identify my body and there you would also have learnt that I had been raped as well. … The murderer would have never been found since we don't have their wealth and power.
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