The Iranian regime has “cemented its shameful status as the world’s top official executioner of juvenile offenders after two young men were re-sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were under 18 years old”, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
Two Iranian juvenile offenders Sajad Sanjari and Hamid Ahmadi, are facing death after the Iranian regim’s judiciary concluded that they had reached “mental maturity” at the time of the crime.
Sajad Sanjari, now aged 20, was 15 years old at the time of alleged crime and Hamid Ahmadi, now aged 24, was first sentenced to death in August 2009 was 17 years old at the time of committing alleged crime.
“This ruling lays bare the Iranian authorities’ contempt for the human rights of children, coupled with their appetite for the death penalty – a toxic combination that leaves numerous juvenile offenders facing execution,” said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
“Iran’s continued use of the death penalty against persons convicted of crimes committed while they were under 18 years of age is cruel, inhumane and blatantly unlawful. The death sentences of both these men, and all other juvenile offenders on death row in Iran, must be commuted immediately.”
“The re-sentencing to death of Sajad Sanjari and Hamid Ahmadi makes a mockery of a fundamentally flawed provision that gives judges the discretion to impose the death penalty for crimes committed by minors. No such discretion must ever be given under any circumstances. The assessment of their mental state years after the crime is an inherently defective way of determining criminal responsibility,” said Said Boumedouha.
“These retrial proceedings have been hailed as juvenile justice advances but increasingly we are seeing them turning into a cruel show that ends with juvenile offenders once again finding themselves on death row.”