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Iran executes man jailed for murder at 17

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Iranian authorities on Wednesday executed a man who was arrested for murder at the age of 17.

Wednesday’s execution of Arman Abdolali has sparked global outrage with the Amnesty International accusing Tehran of violating international law.

Abdolahi lawyers claimed that the convict was forced to make confessions and subjected to an unfair trial.

In a statement, the rights watchdog said the victim was a child when he was detained and then subjected to a “grossly unfair trial.”

Abdolali, 25, who was executed at dawn on Wednesday in Rajai Shahr Prison near Tehran, was first sentenced to death in December 2015 over the disappearance of his girlfriend, Ghazaleh Shakur, a year earlier.

Shakur’s body was never found and the court found Abdolali guilty of murdering her without leaving any trace after achieving “mental maturity and understanding the nature of the crime.”

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The court relied on the opinion of a Children and Adolescent Court Advisor who stated the man understood the abhorrent nature of the crime.

The Supreme Court upheld the sentence in 2016 despite acknowledging he had been held in solitary confinement for 76 days and repeatedly beaten before his alleged confession.

But no investigation was carried out and the court described the confessions as unequivocal.

Abdolali was given a retrial last year after the Children and Adolescent Court Advisor withdrew her previous opinion, saying they had never even met the defendant or studied his case file.

The trial focused on his apparent maturity at the time of the crime and since it was possible to determine it years later, they upheld his sentence.

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