Iran’s Supreme Court Sentenced a Man, 27, and His Lover, 33, to Death for Adultery

Iran‘s supreme court in the capital of Tehran has upheld death sentences for adultery against a 27-year-old and his 33-year-old lover after the man’s father-in-law denied them clemency.

The man’s wife, who presented police with video evidence of her husband’s infidelity early this year, had asked the courts to spare the pair the death penalty, the Shargh Daily said.

Yet her father demanded that the death sentence be imposed and the court found in his favour, the paper added.

Iranian law provides that if a victim’s family forgives the accused in a capital crime, the convict can be either pardoned or given a jail sentence.

Under the interpretation of Islamic Sharia law in force since Iran’s 1979 revolution, adultery is punishable by stoning.

However, Tehran changed the law in 2013 to allow judges to order an alternative method of execution, usually hanging.

It was unclear what form of execution the court ordered in the latest case.

According to human rights group Amnesty International, Iran carried out 246 executions last year, just one in public.

It gave no breakdown of the number carried out for adultery.

ISLAM’S LEGAL SYSTEM: SHARIA LAW

Sharia law governs all aspects of an observant Muslim’s life, and is drawn largely from the Quran – the Islamic sacred book – as well as the hadiths, which are the actions attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

In some Muslim countries, sharia law is associated with tough punishments for adultery, blasphemy and crimes such as theft.

For example, in January 2017, two teenagers were whipped 17 times each after spending months in jail because they were caught hugging in Indonesia’s Aceh province.

A female university student and her boyfriend, both 18, were handed the sentence under strict Sharia law in the province, which forbids intimate displays in public.

The pair were marched on to a stage in front of a mosque in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh before being struck across the back with a bamboo cane.

Around the same time a 35-year-old man was also flogged with a rattan cane for being intimate with a woman – aged 40 – in a local grocery store.