Two Inmates Executed in Ghezel-Hesar Prison

On January 5, 2023, two death-row inmates previously convicted of drug-related crimes were executed in Ghezel-Hesar Prison, Karaj.

According to HRANA, the news agency of Human Rights Activists, two inmates identified by HRANA as Mehdi Asgari and Rostam Abbaszadeh were executed in Ghezel-Hesar prison.

An informed source told HRANA that Abbaszadeh had been released after serving out his sentence for drug offences in 2006. However, when he was arrested for the second time, he received a life sentence after reviewing the first case and a death sentence for the second case.

None of the official sources and media outlets inside the country has reported these executions at the time of writing.

In 2022, the Department of Statistics and Publication of Human Rights Activists in Iran registered 457 reports related to the death penalty. This included 92 death sentences, including the conviction of 6 people to public execution and 565 execution sentences were carried out, 2 of which have been carried out in public. Based on the announced identifications of some of the executed individuals, 501 were male and 11 were female. In addition, 5 juvenile offenders were executed in 2022, meaning they were under the age of 18 at the time they committed the crime.