Iran Executes Jewish Citizen Convicted of Murder Following Dispute Over Money

TEHRAN: Iran on Monday executed a Jewish citizen convicted of murdering ar man in 2022 following a personal dispute, reports said. It was a rare case of execution of a member of a religious mirity in a predominately Muslim nation.

Mizanline.ir, a website affiliated with Iran’s judiciary, said 23-year-old Arvin Ghahremani was put to death after country’s Supreme Court affirmed capital punishment handed down in case earlier last year.

report quoted Hamid Reza Karimi, prosecutor of western city of Kermanshah, as saying court and convicted man’s lawyers and relatives had failed to convince victim’s family to abstain from qisas — an act under Islamic penal code that calls for similar punishment, or an “eye for an eye” — and effectively pardon his killer.

victim’s name was t provided.

According to report, Ghahramani attacked victim outside a gym in Kermanshah in 2022 and stabbed man several times following a dispute over money he had loaned victim.

Jewish citizens are a small mirity in country of 85 million. In 1999, Iran arrested 13 Jewish citizens, accusing m of spying for Israel and sentenced several to up to four years in prison.

Many Jews fled country after 1979 Islamic Revolution and current estimates suggest some 20,000 Jews remain in Iran. Shiite Muslims make up most of Iran’s population and establishment is led by hard-line clerics who preach a strict version of Islam.