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Iran said it executed a fighter on Saturday for murdering a man during a wave of anti-government protests in 2018, drawing widespread condemnation and stirring up the International Olympic Committee. Navid Afkari, 27, was executed in a prison in the southern city of Shiraz, provincial attorney general Kazem Mousavi said on the state television website. Afkari was convicted of “voluntary manslaughter” for stabbing Hossein Torkman, an employee of the water department, to death on August 2, 2018, the judiciary said. Shiraz and several other urban centers across Iran had been the scene that day of protests and demonstrations against the government over economic and social difficulties. The International Olympic Committee said it was “shocked” by the execution and that it was “deeply upsetting” that pleas from athletes around the world and international bodies had failed to stop it.
“Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Navid Afkari,” the IOC said in a statement. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced a “cruel” execution. “We condemn it in the strongest terms. It is a heinous attack on human dignity, even by the despicable standards of this regime. The voices of the Iranian people will not be silenced,” Pompeo tweeted. London-based human rights group Amnesty International said the “secret execution” was a “horrible travesty of justice in need of immediate international action.” Reports published abroad say Afkari was convicted on the basis of confessions broadcast on television after being extracted under torture, prompting online campaigns for his release.
Amnesty has repeatedly called on Iran to stop broadcasting videos of “confessions” from suspects, saying they “violate the rights of the accused.” The Mizan Online news agency of the judiciary denied the allegations. According to Amnesty, Afkari’s two brothers, Vahid and Habib, are still in the same prison where he had been detained. The death sentence was carried out “at the insistence of the victim’s family,” said Mousavi, the attorney general for Fars province. Afkari’s lawyer, Hassan Younessi, tweeted that several people in Shiraz were meeting the slain worker’s family on Sunday to apologize. He also said that according to Iranian criminal law, “the convict has the right to reunite with his family before execution.” “Were you in such a hurry to serve your sentence that you deprived Navid of his last visit?”
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