Juvenile Offender Hamidreza Ajdari at Imminent Risk of Execution/Iran Human Rights Calls for Immediate Halt

According to information and documents received by Iran Human rights, Hamidreza Ajdari has been sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for a murder he is alleged to have committed at 17. Branch Seven of the Shiraz Criminal Court has scheduled his execution for Sunday, 8 May 2022.

There is a major error with Hamidreza’s birth certificate which according to his parents, was not his. Mr and Mrs Ajdari had a child born on 30 December 2000 who sadly passed away shortly after birth. When Hamidreza was born at the end of 2002, the family did not request a birth certificate for him but used the one issued for their older deceased child which had not been invalidated.

As the alleged crime took place on 21 February 2020, his official document shows his age to have been 19 at the time, while he was in fact, 17 years old. Mr and Mrs Ajdari who are tribal nomads with very little financial means, did not know to submit the relevant documents to the court in time. Though lawyers are now involved, no legal action can be taken until the current sentence has been overturned.

Iran Human Rights has copies of all the documents which can be made available to international institutions.

Iran Human Rights urges the international community, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran and European governments with diplomatic relation with Iran, to take immediate action to stop Hamidreza’s execution. He must be retried as a juvenile offender and his testimony of being tortured for three weeks and his co-defendants collaborating with the police to force him to take the blame for the murder, must be investigated thoroughly.