UN experts urge Iran to halt execution of juvenile offender
Hossein Shahbazi was 17 when he was arrested for fatally stabbing a classmate and was sentenced to death in a trial that reportedly relied on torture-tainted confessions.
A group of UN human rights experts urged Iran on Thursday to halt the execution of a young man arrested for murder as a minor.
Hossein Shahbazi was 17 years old when he was arrested for fatally stabbing a classmate during a fight between a group of four people in 2018.
The UN-appointed experts, whose work addresses human rights in Iran, child rights, executions and torture, said in a statement that Shahbazi was denied access to a lawyer while he was interrogated by police for 11 days.
The trial of Shahbazi, now 20, relied on confessions obtained under torture and other ill-treatment, the UN experts said. A criminal court in Fars province sentenced him to death for murder in January 2020.
