Iran executes young Iranian Jewish man who killed Muslim in apparent act of self-defense

The Iranian regime executed a young Jewish man, Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani at an undisclosed location on Monday morning, according to reports in Mizan, the Islamic Republic’s judiciary news agency on Monday morning. 

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), a Norway-based non-governmental organization that monitors human rights violations in Iran, said Ghahremani was likely hanged at the central prison in the western city of Kermanshah. 

When he was 18 years old, Ghahremani was accused of murder after killing another man in a dispute involving several other people in the Ferdowsi neighborhood of Kermanshah.

His family contends that the young man acted in self-defense, after the victim, Amir Shokri, attacked him with a knife in a dispute over money owed to Ghahremani.

He was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind), which includes the death penalty. In Iran, a victim’s family can choose to forgive someone accused of killing another person, demand blood money from the accused, or ask for the death penalty. 

Iran Human Rights said the victim’s family initially accepted the payment of blood money (called diya) from Ghahremani, that is until they found out he was Jewish.

Ynet News reported that activists' efforts to raise a million dollars as blood money were unsuccessful, as Shokri’s mother refused to accept the payment."

Reports in Iran stated that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's representative in Kermanshah, Habiullah Ghafouri, along with IRGC intelligence officers, pressured Shokri's family not to forgive Ghahremani because he was Jewish.

Ghahremani’s family say that critical elements of the defense's arguments were ignored during his trial, including his efforts to help the victim by attempting to transport him to a hospital after an ambulance was delayed, and other subsequent efforts to save Shokri's life. These details were absent from court documents about the case.

IHRNGO Director, Mahmood Amiri-Moghadam said the decision to execute Ghahremani is related to the “institutionalized anti-Semitism in the Islamic Republic.” 

“In the midst of the threats of war with Israel, the Islamic Republic executed Arvin Ghahremani, an Iranian-Jewish citizen, today. Like many of those sentenced to qisas, Arvin's case and the judicial process had significant flaws," Amiri-Moghadam said.

"However, in addition to this, Arvin was a Jew, and the institutionalized anti-Semitism in the Islamic Republic undoubtedly played a crucial role in the implementation of his sentence.”