AKI – Delara Darabi, a 20-year-old Iranian woman sentenced to death on charges she killed a cousin when she was 17, tried to kill herself at Tehran’s Evin prison. Her mother told Tehran daily Etemad that her daughter is clinically depressed and only weighs 35 kilos.
Dozens of petitions have been made worldwide since Delara’s story caught the attention of the international media after a journalist who had been following her story organized a show with paintings Delara made during her imprisonment. Delara denies she killed her cousin.
The exhibition of her paintings, entitled ‘Prisoner of colours’, was organised by journalist Assieh Amini in October last year at Tehran’s Golestan gallery.
A minors’ tribunal sentenced Darabi to death for knifing to death her 17-year-old cousin with the help of a young man, 21, who was sentenced to ten years in jail. Darabi’s attorney, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, has pleaded her innocence in the first trial and two appeal cases in vain.
