Iran executes Kurdish prisoner

PARIS: Iran has executed a Kurdish man for armed rebellion despite international pressure for his life to be spared, activists said on Monday, after a trial that was alleged to be unfair with forced confessions.

Heidar Ghorbani was executed on Sunday morning in Sanandaj prison in western Iran’s Kurdistan province, the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) NGO said, adding that neither his family nor his lawyer had been given prior warning.

UN human rights experts had in September urged Iran to repeal his death sentence over “serious concerns” that he did not receive a fair trial and was tortured during pre-trial detention.

Amnesty International had also called for his life to be spared, saying that there had been “numerous violations” in his trial, which it said was “grossly unfair”.

Campaign groups say that Ghorbani was convicted and sentenced to death in 2020 in connection with the killing in 2016 of three men linked to the pro-government Basij militia. He had been jailed since October 2016.