Iranian killer’s execution halted at last minute by victim’s parents

Hosseinzadeh’s mother slaps Balal. Photograph: Arash Khamooshi /Isna

An Iranian killer’s execution was halted at last minute by the parents of the man he killed. The convict had noose around his neck when victim’s mother approached, slapped him in the face and spared his life..Minutes earlier, crowds had watched as guards pushed him towards the gallows for what was meant to be yet another public execution in the Islamic republic of Iran.

When he felt the noose around his neck, Balal must have thought he was about to take his last breath.

Seven years ago Balal, who is in his 20s, stabbed 18-year-old Abdollah Hosseinzadeh during a street brawl in the small town of Royan, in the northern province of Mazandaran. In a literal application of qisas, the sharia law of retribution, the victim’s family were to participate in Balal’s punishment by pushing the chair on which he stood.

But what happened next marked a rarity in public executions in Iran, which puts more people to death than any other country apart from China. The victim’s mother approached, slapped the convict in the face and then decided to forgive her son’s killer. The victim’s father removed the noose and Balal’s life was spared.

Balal’s mother hugged the grieving mother of the man her son had killed. The two women sobbed in each other’s arms – one because she had lost her son, the other because hers had been saved.

The action by Hosseinzadeh’s mother was all the more extraordinary as it emerged that this was not the first son she had lost. Her younger child Amirhossein was killed in a motorbike accident at the age of 11.

“My 18-year-old son Abdollah was taking a stroll in the bazaar with his friends when Balal shoved him,” said the victim’s father, Abdolghani Hosseinzadeh, according to Isna. “Abdollah was offended and kicked him but at this time the murderer took an ordinary kitchen knife out of his socks.”

Hosseinzadeh Sr has come to the conclusion that Balal did not kill his son deliberately. “Balal was inexperienced and didn’t know how to handle a knife. He was naive.”

According to the father, Balal escaped the scene of the stabbing but was later arrested by the police. It took six years for a court to hand down a death sentence, and the victim’s family deferred the execution a number of times. An date for execution was set just before the Persian new year, Nowruz, but the victim’s family did not approve of the timing.