Three Including Afghan National Executed for Drug Charges in Shiraz

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, three men were executed in Shiraz Central Prison on April 5. Their identities have been established as Yousef Jomeh Hosseini who was an Afghan national, Kazem Rasouli and Ali Hossein Sadeghzadeh. They were sentenced to death for drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court.

Their executions were carried out while there is usually a halt to executions during the Muslim month of Ramadan. In 2022, one prisoner, another Afghan national only identified as Golmohammad was executed during the month of Ramadan.

An informed source told Iran Human Rights: “Yousef Jomeh Hosseini was from Afghanistan and had been arrested around two years ago. Kazem Rasouli and Ali Hossein Sadeghzadeh were arrested around three years ago and sentenced to death. Ali Hossein had two small children and had always denied being in possession of drugs.”

At the time of writing, their executions have not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

On January 27, Iran Human Rights warned of the high number of drug executions currently being carried out in Iran. Of the 66 executions carried out in January, at least 43 (65%) people were executed for drug-related charges, none of which were officially announced.

Drug executions dramatically dropped between 2018-2020 following the Amendment to the Anti-Drug Laws in 2017. However, this reversed in practice in 2021 when numbers increased by five-fold and have continued to rise throughout 2022 and 2023.