Iran hangs 'child bride' for murder of husband: rights group

Iran on Wednesday hanged a woman convicted of murdering her husband, whom she married while still a child, a human rights group said, defying an international campaign for clemency.

Samira Sabzian, who had been in prison for the past decade, was executed at dawn in Ghezel Hesar prison in the Tehran satellite city of Karaj, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group said.

It said she was a "child bride" who had married her husband at the age of 15 and had been a victim of domestic violence, according to relatives.

She was arrested 10 years ago when she was aged 19 on charges of murdering her husband and then subsequently sentenced to death, it said.

She had two children who she had not seen after her arrest until a final meeting in prison earlier this month, IHR said.

"Samira was a victim of years of gender apartheid, child marriage and domestic violence, and today she fell victim to the incompetent and corrupt regime's killing machine," said IHR director Mahmood-Amiry Moghaddam.

Rights groups have raised alarm over a surge in executions in Iran this year, with at least 115 people put to death in November alone according to Amnesty International.

Amnesty had urged Iran not to carry out the execution, saying the authorities were implementing a "horrific state-sanctioned killing spree".

The British government had called on Iran to spare Sabzian's life.

"Samira is a victim of child marriage... Iran must cease its appalling treatment of women and girls," junior foreign minister Tariq Ahmad said on X, formerly Twitter, late Tuesday.

According to IHR, 18 women have now been executed in Iran this year, including Samira Sabzian.

Iran slams Swedish life sentence for ex-official

Tehran condemned as "unacceptable" Wednesday a Swedish court's rejection of an appeal by a former Iranian prison official against a life sentence handed down over mass executions in 1988.

On Tuesday, a Swedish appeals court upheld the jail term handed down against Hamid Noury, 62, in July last year "for grave breaches of international humanitarian law and murder".

"It is regrettable that the Swedish court, without considering the standards of a fair trial, decided to issue such a destructive verdict," foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement.

He condemned the judgment as "fundamentally unacceptable" and said Iran would "use all legal avenues at its disposal" to secure Noury's release.

Noury was arrested at Stockholm airport in November 2019 after Iranian dissidents in Sweden filed police complaints against him.

The case relates to the killing of at least 5,000 prisoners across Iran to avenge attacks carried out by the rebel People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) at the end of the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88.

Noury had worked as an assistant prosecutor in a prison near Tehran at the time, but argued that he was on leave during the period in question.

Sweden has tried Noury under its principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows it to try a case regardless of where the alleged offence took place.

There have been concerns that the case could have repercussions for the fate of Swedish prisoners in Iran, including EU diplomat Johan Floderus, who has been held for more than 600 days.

Floderus, 33, has been charged with the capital offence of "corruption on earth". He was detained at Tehran airport in April 2022 on his return from a trip abroad while Noury's original trial was underway.

Another Swedish citizen, dual national Ahmad Reza Jalali, is already on death row in Iran after he was detained in 2016 and sentenced to death on espionage charges.

Swedish media have speculated about the possibility of a prisoner swap between Sweden and Iran. Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom has declined to comment.