URGENT ACTION
PUBLIC AI Index: MDE
13/106/2006
22 September 2006
UA 252/06 Imminent execution
IRAN Kobra Rahmanpour (f),
aged about 25
It is feared that Kobra Rahmanpour is at imminent risk of execution for murder.
The Office for the Implementation of Sentences, which carries out executions,
has set a deadline of 12 October for the family of the murder victim to agree
to forgo their right to have Kobra Rahmanpour executed, and accept the payment
of diyeh (blood money) instead. If they continue to
ask for the execution to be
implemented, it is likely to be carried out soon after 12 October.
Kobra Rahmanpour was
arrested on 5 November 2000 and was sentenced to death by
Branch 1608 of
mother-in-law. In 2003 the sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court. She
claimed she had acted in self-defence after her mother-in-law had tried to
attack her with a kitchen knife. Kobra Rahmanpour was allegedly forced into
marriage against her will by her parents, due to the poverty of her family, and
was subjected to domestic violence during her marriage. She did not have access
to a lawyer until the beginning of her trial.
Kobra Rahmanpour was
scheduled to be executed on 31 December 2003. However, on
that day, the Judge of the Office for the Implementation of Sentences confirmed
to a reporter from the internet news site, the Iranian Students’ News Agency
(ISNA), that the execution was cancelled because prison authorities were not
fully equipped for it (there were allegedly no handcuffs to use on the way to
the execution site).
In January 2004 Kobra Rahmanpour’s
execution was temporarily postponed by
Ayatollah Shahroudi, the Head of the Judiciary, to
allow the opportunity for
the victims’ family to agree to pardon Kobra Rahmanpour. In a letter to Amnesty
International dated 3 February 2004, the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of
Iran in
that the sentence could only be commuted if the victim’s heirs were to forgo
their right to retribution and ask instead for compensation. The case was then
transferred to the mediation body known as the Council for the Resolution of
Differences (in Persian, the Shoray-e Hall-e Ekhtelaf), for the victim’s family
to come to an agreement about whether to forgo their right to retribution and
accept the payment of blood money. However, no resolution has been reached.
According to Kobra Rahmanpour’s
lawyer, the victim’s family have not agreed to
pardon her. At the beginning of September 2006, the Office for the
Implementation of Sentences reportedly set a deadline of 12 October for an
agreement to be reached on pardoning Kobra Rahmanpour.
Kobra Rahmanpour has been
detained in Evin prison for nearly six years, for
four of which she has been under sentence of death. In September 2006, she
wrote an open letter, published on the internet, in which she said:
"I am a human like you. I don’t want to die. But right now I am more like
a
lifeless body who has forgotten happiness and laughter scared of the execution
rope…I am only a step away from death. I, like all of you, am scared to die.
Help me so this wouldn’t be my last letter. So many times I think with myself,
wishing my life would follow a different path. Wishing I could finish my
pre-university course. Wishing I wouldn’t be forced to work and to serve my
husband’s family. Wishing I wouldn’t reach the borders of madness. But I have
suffered so much. I am really a victim. And it is this victim who they are
going to hang to death. This is not a destiny that I deserve. In these days of
fear and horror, I come to you again. I thank all the media, papers and people
who supported me and said that "Kobra shouldn’t
be executed". This time, maybe
for the last time, I want to ask you to do your last efforts for me so I am not
executed and have a chance to be free. In my dreams I always think of freedom
and a good life after that. I have suffered enough. Help me so this horrible
nightmare that has so many times chased me in sleep and has made me wake up and
scream, won’t come true. Help me to be away from death. Do whatever you can,
there is little time. These days would be gone too, and for me, every click of
the clock is a sign that death is near. Please help me! I am scared of death
and execution. I hate the execution rope and the crane. I want to live. All
other ways are closed to me. Nobody is here for me. My only hope lies in people
and my fellow humans. I want to hug my father and mother. In the end, I’d like
to thank my family and everybody who struggles to save me, for their
efforts."
On 11 May 2006, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD)
released a statement on the case. Finding that Kobra Rahmanpour could not
access the services of a defense lawyer "between her taking in custody and
the
beginning of the trial", the WGAD emphasized that: "The lack of legal
representation in the investigation of a capital charge may seriously
jeopardize a supreme human value; the life of the accused. It is the position
of the Working Group that in the instant case the lack of defense counsel from
the initial stage of the investigation is so detrimental to the interests of
justice in general, and to the interests of the person charged in particular
that it confers to the criminal proceedings an unfair character." The WGAD
further said that "Under the specific circumstances of this case and
bearing in
mind that she is being held on death row since long, the most appropriate
remedy would be to obtain her exemption from the implementation of the capital
punishment. Such a generous measure, the Working Group believes, would be
broadly welcomed and highly appreciated by the international community."
[Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Opinion No 14/2006, 11
May 2006,
paragraph 15].
Kobra Rahmanpour was
previously the subject of UA 364/03 (MDE 13/041/2003, 15
December 2003, and follow-ups).
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