({{AFP}}) – {Iran executed Saturday a 26-year-old woman who had spent five years on death row for the murder of a former intelligence official, defying international pressure to spare her life.}
Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged at dawn, the official IRNA news agency quoted the Tehran prosecutor’s office as saying.
A message posted on the homepage of a Facebook campaign that was set up to try to save her, but which now states “Rest in Peace,” confirmed the report.
Amnesty International said in a statement issued late Friday that Jabbari, an interior designer, was due to be executed for the 2007 stabbing of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi.
A UN human rights monitor had said the killing of Sarbandi was an act of self-defence after he tried to sexually assault Jabbari, and that her trial in 2009 had been deeply flawed.
Iranian actors and other prominent figures had appealed for a stay of execution, echoing similar calls in the West.
Efforts for clemency had intensified in recent weeks. Jabbari’s mother was allowed to visit her for one hour on Friday, Amnesty said, a custom that tends to precede executions in Iran.
According to the United Nations, more than 250 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2014.
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