Raising children to become a killer... (...or, Iran uses young boy to execute serial killer)

OMG, this is so sick

TEHRAN (BNO NEWS) -- Iran used a young boy on Thursday to carry out the execution of a convicted serial killer, reports said on Friday. Ten other people were also executed in various parts of the country.

One of the eleven people executed on Thursday was identified by state-run media as 37-year-old Mehdi Faraji, who was previously convicted of murdering five women between May 2009 and March 2010. He was executed in the city of Qazvin, west of the capital of Tehran.

According to human rights group Iran Human Rights, Faraji was publicly hung by a young boy whose precise age was not known. The group published a picture on its website that showed the execution being carried out.

"According to our reports, a young boy was used to draw the chair Mehdi was standing on and carry out the execution," Iran Human Rights said on its website. "The picture above shows the boy while conducting the execution."

"These barbaric executions and using ordinary citizens, especially the minors to carry out these executions must be condemned by the world community," said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, a spokesman for Iran Human Rights. "Iranian leaders must be held accountable for promoting a culture of murder and brutality in Iran."

Four other people were executed in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz on Thursday, while six convicted drug traffickers were hanged in prisons in other regions of the country. Their identities and ages were not released.

According to Amnesty International, the Iranian government acknowledged that at least 252 people were executed in Iran last year, although their reports indicate the actual figure is more than 550. Among those executed were five women and one adult who committed his crime when he was underage.

The vast majority of those executed in Iran last year was for alleged drug trafficking, a crime authorities claim has killed more than 4,000 police officers in recent years.

According to human rights groups, trials in Iran do often not meet international standards of fairness. Proceedings, particularly those held outside Tehran, are often summary, lasting only a few minutes. Mass trials also take place on some occasions.

In October 2010, Amnesty International reported, Iran's Interior Minister stated that the campaign against drug trafficking was being intensified, and the Prosecutor General stated in the same month that new measures had been taken to speed up the judicial processing of drug-trafficking cases, including by referring all such cases to his office, thereby denying them a right to appeal to a higher tribunal, as is required under international law.

Two months later, the amended Anti-Narcotics Law came into force, apparently making it easier to sentence to death those convicted of drug trafficking, according to Amnesty International. The law extended the scope of the death penalty to include additional categories of illegal drugs such as crystal meth, possession of which became punishable by death. Under the Anti-Narcotics Law, some defendants are not granted a right to appeal, as their convictions and sentences are confirmed by the state Prosecutor-General.

Family members of executed persons also faced persecution in some cases last year and were often not given the bodies of their relatives for burial. Others said that they had to pay officials in order to receive their relatives' bodies, as payment for the rope used to hang them.

http://wireupdate.com/wires/17719/iran-uses-young-boy-to-execute-serial-killer/