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Man with Drug Charges in Imminent Danger of Execution

8 Aug 17
Man with Drug Charges in Imminent Danger of Execution

A man in Isfahan Central Prison is in imminent danger of execution for drug related charges. 

Iran Human Rights (AUG 8 2017): A prisoner on death row for drug related charges was reportedly taken to solitary confinement in preparation for his execution. According to close sources, the transfer occurred at Isfahan Central Priosn on the morning of Saturday August 5. The prisoner has been identified as Nader Farrokhnejad. 

A week earlier, Mr. Farrokhnejad was reportedly taken to solitary confinement for execution along with two other prisoners, but their executions were delayed and all three of them were returned to their cells. 

A close source tells Iran Human Rights that Mr. Farrokhnejad was sentenced to death on the charge of trafficking fifty kilograms of opium and thirty kilograms of hash. 

Mr. Farrokhnejad may be executed at any moment on drug charges while the Iranian Parliament has approved a general plan to amend the law for combating drugs. The Parliament is scheduled to vote on the bill again in the coming days. In the event the bill receives final approval, the death sentences for many prisoners with drug charges will be commuted to a prison sentence.

"Had the Iranian authorities waited for the bill to pass, then the death sentences for many of those executed for drug offences would have been commuted to prison terms," said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson for Iran Human Rights, recently. "It is incomprehensible why the Iranian authorities, who have admitted that the death penalty doesn't reduce drug crimes, can't stop drug-related executions for just a few months."