Iran 'hangs man for murder committed as minor'

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran has hanged a man for a murder committed at the age of 15, in violation of an international convention on child rights, reports said on Wednesday, as campaigners said dozens more were on death row for crimes committed as minors.

Reza Hejazi, 20, was hanged on Tuesday in a prison in the central city of Isfahan for stabbing a man to death in a fight in 2003, the reformist Etemad newspaper said.

The execution came as several prominent film stars were summoned before a Tehran court over the launch of a campaign to raise "blood money" to save the life of another man on death row for a murder he committed when he was 17.

Shortly before Hejazi was to go to the gallows, prison officials agreed to his lawyer's request to stay the execution so that...