IN IRAN, a man’s mistress is known as a “temporary wife”. One of the most famous of these ‘temporary wives’ was hanged at dawn this morning, convicted of murdering her lover’s real wife.
Shahla Jahed had spent more than eight years in jail, according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency. She was found guilty of murdering Laleh Saharkizan, the wife of her football star lover Naser Mohammadkhani in 2002. Human rights campaigners have claimed that Jahed was forced to confess to the fatal stabbing. Mohammadkhani had initally been jailed on suspicion of complicity but had been released after Jahed apparently confessed to committing the crime on her own.
Jahed repeatedly told her trial that she was innocent and retracted her confession. In 2008, the then head of Iran’s judiciary ordered that a fresh investigation be carried out into Saharkizan’s murder. However, Iran hung Jahed today just before dawn, the tradition in Iran when executions must be carried out before the Islamic morning call to prayer.
The Guardian quotes the president of the Iranian League for Human Rights, Karim Lahidji, as describing Jahed as a “victim of a misogynous society”.
A documentary called Red Card in 2005 carried footage of Shahla Jahed’s public trial. The documentary was banned in Iran. This excerpt is taken from it:
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