By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
TEHRAN/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Iran executed early Monday a 20-year-old Iranian Jewish man, despite international calls for a lesser penalty, Israeli sources say.
Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani was denied a request for a retrial by Iran’s Supreme Court on May 25.
He was reportedly executed at Kermanshah Central Prison, about 525 kilometers (326 miles) from Tehran, the capital.
His death sentence comes at “a time of heightened tensions between Israel and Iran,” with Tehran threatening new strikes against the Jewish nation.
The Jewish man had been linked to killing Muslim Amir Shokri in self-defense when attacked with a knife two years ago in an apparent antisemitic attack, Israeli sources suggested.
Iranian prosecutors claimed Ghahramani “attacked the victim outside a gym in Kermanshah in 2022 and stabbed the man several times following a dispute over money he had loaned the victim.”
Under the Iranian penal code, retributive justice — or “Qisas” in Arabic — can be applied, an act under the Islamic penal code that calls for similar punishment or an “eye for an eye.”
PUNISHMENT AVOIDED
Iran’s judiciary says such punishment can only be avoided if family members forgive the perpetrator.
Hamid Reza Karimi, the prosecutor of the western city of Kermanshah, said in published remarks that “the court and the convicted man’s lawyers and relatives had failed to convince the victim’s family to abstain from Qisas.”
Advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) complained that Iranian law states that “if a non-Muslim kills a Muslim, Qisas can be carried out, and the perpetrator can be sentenced to death.”
However, “if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim in Iran, Qisas does not apply, and no punishment is handed down.”
Leading human rights experts argue that the law discriminates against minority groups in Iran, such as Jews and Christians.
Iran faced international calls not to execute the Jewish man amid concerns about a possible unfair trial in the Islamic Republic. Still, Tehran decided to carry out the death penalty early Monday.
Hanging is the only known method of state-backed execution in 21st-century Iran, usually carried out in prison.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
Israeli President Isaac Herzog has met victims’ families and survivors of Australia’s worst-ever terrorist and antisemitic attack that killed more than a dozen people, amid mounting tensions between the two nations.
Efforts to dismantle Hamas’ military infrastructure in Gaza are moving forward according to plan, despite tensions surrounding the ceasefire, a senior official involved in U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace initiative told Ynet in an exclusive report Wednesday.
As diplomatic talks continue between Washington and Tehran, new reports from inside Iran describe intensifying repression and widespread fear among ordinary citizens.
U.S. President Donald Trump met privately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House for nearly three hours Wednesday, with both leaders confirming that negotiations with Iran remain ongoing but no final agreement has been reached.
The Pentagon has instructed a second aircraft carrier strike group to prepare for potential deployment to the Middle East as the United States increases military readiness in response to rising tensions with Iran, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Authorities in the U.S. state of Arizona detained a suspect Tuesday in connection with the reported abduction of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of American television host Savannah Guthrie, as the high-profile investigation entered its ninth day.
Nine people were killed Tuesday in a mass shooting in the western Canadian province of British Columbia, and at least 27 others were injured, authorities confirmed late Tuesday, marking one of the deadliest attacks in Canada in recent years.