Iran executes man over killing of Guards colonel in 2022 protests

TEHRAN: Iran executed a man on Tuesday after the courts convicted him of killing a Revolutionary Guards officer during nationwide protests in 2022, the judiciary said.

“Gholamreza Rasaei was executed this morning (Tuesday) in Kermanshah prison” in western Iran for “stabbing to death a Revolutionary Guards colonel during the illegal protests in November 2022,” the judiciary´s Mizan Online website reported.

The colonel, Nader Bayrami, was in charge of the Guards´ intelligence unit in Sahneh city of Kermanshah province in Iran´s Kurdish region, according to the Tasnim news agency.

The country´s Kurdish region was one of the centres of the protests that followed the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurd, in police custody.

Amini, 22, had been arrested in Tehran for an alleged breach of Iran´s strict dress code for women.

Hundreds of people were killed during the demonstrations, including dozens of security personnel, and thousands more arrested in what officials labelled foreign-instigated “riots”.

Mizan said Rasaei was sentenced to death in October 2023 in accordance with Islamic Sharia law on “retribution”, and the verdict was later upheld by the Supreme Court.