A 26-year-old Iranian woman who spent five years on death row for the murder of a former intelligence official has been executed, defying international pressure to spare her life.
Reyhaneh Jabbari walked to the gallows in Tehran's Evin prison, after failing to secure a reprieve from the murder victim's relatives within the 10-day deadline set by sharia law, in force since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
She was sentenced to death in accordance with Koranic "qisas" - eye-for-an-eye law - after being found guilty of stabbing dead an older man, Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, with a kitchen knife in 2007.
Tehran's prosecutor's office said Ms Jabbari was hanged at dawn, according to official IRNA news agency reports.
A message posted on the homepage of a Facebook campaign that was set up to try to save her, which now states "Rest in Peace", confirmed the report.
The statement also said Ms Jabbari's mother was allowed to visit her for one hour on Friday, a custom that tends to precede executions in Iran.
Ahmed Shaheed, the UN's human rights rapporteur on Iran, said in April that Sarbandi had offered to hire Ms Jabbari to redesign his office, and took her to an apartment where he sexually abused her.
The human rights monitor said the killing of Sarbandi was an act of self-defence after he tried to sexually assault Ms Jabbari, and that her trial in 2009 had been deeply flawed.Sarbandi's family insisted that the murder was premeditated, and that Ms Jabbari confessed to buying a knife two days before the killing.
According to Jalal Sarbandi, the victim's eldest son, Ms Jabbari testified that a man was present in the apartment where his father was killed "but she refuses to reveal his identity".
He told Shargh and Etemad, two of Iran's reformist daily newspapers, in April that his family "would not even contemplate mercy until truth is unearthed".
"Only when her true intentions are exposed and she tells the truth about her accomplice and what really went down will we be prepared to grant mercy," he said at the time.
Justice minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said in early October that a "good ending" was in sight but official media reported later that the slain man's family could not be persuaded to approve leniency for Ms Jabbari.
Her last chance of reprieve lay with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose powers transcend all state mandates, but he never mentioned the case and has only rarely intervened in court cases regardless of political considerations.
Immediately after the execution, the prosecutor's office issued a statement that appeared aimed at countering sympathy for Ms Jabbari.
"Jabbari had repeatedly confessed to premeditated murder, then tried to divert the case from its course by inventing the rape charge," said the statement carried by IRNA.
"But all her efforts to feign innocence were proven false in various phases of prosecution. Evidence was firm.
"She had informed a friend through text message of her intention to kill. It was ascertained that she had purchased the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, two days before committing murder."
The UN and international rights groups said Ms Jabbari's confession was obtained under intense pressure and threats from Iranian prosecutors, and she should have had a retrial.
Rouhani pressured by international condemnation
Efforts for clemency had intensified in recent weeks. Iranian actors and other prominent figures had appealed for a stay of execution, echoing similar calls in the West.
US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki condemned the execution, saying there were "serious concerns with the fairness of the trial and the circumstances surrounding the case".
"Iranian authorities proceeded with this execution despite pleas from Iranian human rights activists and an international outcry over this case," she said in a statement.
"We join our voice with those who call on Iran to respect the fair trial guarantees afforded to its people under Iran's own laws and its international obligations."
The international condemnation sparked by Ms Jabbari's death sentence, prompted the government of president Hassan Rouhani, who won election last year partly on promises of liberal reform, to intervene to get it commuted.
Mr Rouhani came under fire from secular Iranians - his main political constituency - over a spate of acid attacks on young women deemed by their attackers to have insufficiently covered their hair in accordance with sharia.
Many Iranians believe the attacks have been provoked by Islamist hardliners in a continuing campaign to thwart the political and social reforms pledged by Mr Rouhani during his electoral campaign.
But many of Iran's more secular voters have also voiced frustration that domestic reforms appear to have taken a back seat to foreign policy under Mr Rouhani, in particular the tortuous negotiations with world powers to resolve the nuclear stand-off.
According to the United Nations, more than 250 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of the year.
AFP/Reuters
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