Execution of Rasoul Farahbakhsh in Mashhad Prison Before Supreme Court Review
2-November-2025
Category: executions
2 November 2025 — Category: Executions
Breathing in Confinement — The death sentence of at least one prisoner was carried out in Mashhad while his case had already been scheduled for reconsideration by the Supreme Court.
According to Breathing in Confinement, the Prisoners’ Rights League in Iran’s news outlet, the execution of “Rasoul Farahbakhsh” was carried out in Mashhad Central Prison. He had been sentenced to death for “murder,” a verdict based on the judge’s personal knowledge (“elm-e qāzi”).
Farahbakhsh was executed at dawn on Monday, 29 September 2025, despite the Supreme Court having set 18 December 2025 to review his case.
A native of Hamedan, Farahbakhsh was arrested in 2018 after a group altercation that resulted in the death of a man named Mohammadreza Labaf. Throughout the proceedings, he maintained that he inflicted only a single knife wound that was not the fatal blow, and that the brawl continued among others afterward.
During the case, another man, identified as Ahmad, was arrested for the killing and sentenced to retribution (qesas). Later, several of Ahmad’s relatives appeared in court and testified against Farahbakhsh. Relying on his own “judicial knowledge,” the trial judge then re-arrested Farahbakhsh and ultimately sentenced him to death.
Up to his final moments, Farahbakhsh denied the charge of murder, telling the victim’s family at the gallows: “I am not the killer of your son; the killer is walking free.”
Under Articles 211 and 212 of the Islamic Penal Code, a judge’s personal knowledge may serve as evidence only when grounded in firm, corroborated indicators. In Farahbakhsh’s case, there were no adequate material or forensic proofs—such as criminal-lab analyses or a rigorous assessment of witness credibility—and the defendant consistently denied the accusation. The contradictions in the proceedings, including the presence of two different defendants for a single homicide, underscore the unreliability of the reliance on “judicial knowledge” in this verdict and its lack of legal soundness.
No official report
As of the time of this report, the execution of this prisoner has not been announced by official sources.
Annual Report on Executions in Iran
According to the annual report by the Statistics Centre of the Prisoners’ Rights League in Iran, at least 1,170 individuals were executed in Iran in 2024. Among them, six people were executed in public, and the executed also included 38 women and 9 juvenile offenders.