Two Kurdish and an Arab Man Executed in Ilam

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, three men were executed in Ilam Central Prison on 1st October. Their identities have been established as Nima Farahmand (Pishgar), a 24-year-old Kurdish man from Ilam, Nosratollah Montani, another Kurdish man from Ilam and Mehdi Khorasan, an Arab man from Dasht Abbas in Ilam.

They were sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder by the Criminal Court.

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

Those charged with the umbrella term of “intentional murder” are sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) regardless of intent or circumstances due to a lack of grading in law. Once a defendant has been convicted, the victim’s family are required to choose between death as retribution, diya (blood money) or forgiveness.

The Head of Judiciary sets an annual indicative amount for diya based on inflation and other considerations, but the victim’s family can choose their own amount. They can demand a lower or higher amount than the judiciary’s indicative number but crucially, no upper limit is set. The diya indicative amounts, which are determined every March, were set at 900 mil- lion tomans (€18,000) for a Muslim man and 450 million tomans (€9,000) for a Muslim woman in March 2023. The amount set by families is usually higher than the indicative amount and even the indicative amount is higher than what most families can afford.