According to state media, Iranian wrestler Naveed Afkari has been hanged after being found guilty of stabbing a security guard to death.
Hassan Turkman’s killer Naveed Afkari was sentenced this morning in Shiraz’s Adelabad jail, state TV reported on Saturday.
Authorities accused Afkari, 27, of stabbing an employee of a water supply company in the southern city of Shiraz. Iran televised the wrestler’s confession last week.
But Afkari said he was tortured into making a false confession, according to his family and activists. His lawyer said there was no evidence of his guilt. However, Iran’s judiciary has denied the allegations.
Afkari and his brothers worked as construction workers in Shiraz, 680 km (420 miles) south of the capital Tehran.
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The Shiraz provincial court also sentenced Afkari’s brothers Wahid Afkari and Habib Afkari to 54 and 27 years in prison respectively for the murder.
Al Jazeera Acid Bag, reporting from Tehran, said there is Two different statements about murder.
“Outside of Iran, we are hearing that Naveed Afkari was arrested in connection with the 2018 protests and the assassination of a security official. Inside Iran, it is very different. The judiciary recently issued a statement – they said. Naveed Afkari was arrested after the murder of a 52-year-old water worker at Shiraz Water Company on July 23, 2018.
“Naveed Afkari was arrested by the police a few days after he was identified using CCTV footage. As far as the judiciary is concerned, his arrest and conviction have nothing to do with the protest,” Beg said.
Trump’s appeal
Afkari’s sentencing triggered a social media campaign targeting him and his brothers to take part in the 2018 protests. On Tuesday, the World Federation, representing 85,000 athletes, called for Iran to be expelled from world sport if convicted of Afkari.
United States President Donald Trump also expressed his concern.
Trump tweeted earlier this month, “Iranian leaders, I highly commend you if you can save this young man’s life, and not hang him,” Trump tweeted earlier this month. “Thank you!”
Iran responded to Trump’s tweet with an 11-minute state TV broadcast on Afkari, which included Turkmen’s crying parents.
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The broadcast included visuals of Afkari on a motorcycle, saying he attacked Turkmen in the back without explaining why he attacked.
State TV Segum also showed vague police documents and called the murder a “personal dispute,” without elaborating.
It said Afkari’s mobile phone was in the area and showed surveillance footage of him walking down the street talking on his phone.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency has rejected Trump’s tweet in an exclusive story that US sanctions have damaged Iranian hospitals amid the epidemic.
The agency said Trump worries about the killer’s life while he has endangered the lives of many Iranian patients by imposing many sanctions.
Bag noted oTate TV has given an interview with Hassan Turkmen’s parents, in which they said that their son was killed, and they had the right to revenge.
They added, “The foreign media did not even bother to speak to him when his son was killed, and he left behind three children. So there are two very different descriptions,” Begg said.
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