An Iranian woman died of a heart attack while waiting to be executed – but her body was still hanged so that the victim’s mother could assist, according to her lawyer.
Zahra Ismaili was waiting for her turn on the gallows last Wednesday for killing her husband, a senior intelligence agent who she accused of being abusive, according to The London Times.
She fell dead after being forced to watch 16 men hanged in front of her, according to a message from her lawyer, Omid Moradi, shared by the UK newspaper and Iran Human Rights Monitor (HRM).
“Zahra’s heart stopped and she died before she was taken to the gallows,” Moradi wrote, saying that the official cause of death was listed as “cardiac arrest”.
“They hanged her lifeless body, and the victim’s mother, Fatemeh Asal-Mahi, personally kicked the stool under her feet so that she could see her daughter-in-law’s corpse on the gallows for a few seconds,” he wrote in the already deleted post. , according to the media.
The body was hanged at dawn in Rajai Shahr prison, a notoriously severe prison in Karaj, a suburb of the capital Tehran, the media said.
Moradi insisted that Ismaili acted in self-defense to save herself and her children when she killed her husband, Alireza Zamani, the UK Times said.
The Islamic Republic has imposed many death sentences in recent weeks, but executing 17 people at the same time is extreme even by Iranian standards, the UK newspaper noted.
Ismaili is one of three women killed last week, making 114 women executed during the term of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, which started in 2013, according to Iran’s HRM.