Babak Khorramdin’s body was buried in the Artists’ Section in Behesht-e Zahra cemetery; Legal considerations of the case
1-June-2021
Category: Uncategorized
28-May-2021
Newsgroup: Uncategorized –
Breathing in Confinement: On May 27, 2021, ten days after the shocking news of the murder of Babak Khorramdin, a film director and university lecturer by his parents, his body was buried in the Artists’ Section in Behesht-e Zahra cemetery.
On May 16, a few hours after Babak Khorramdin’s mutilated body was found, his parents were arrested and confessed to the murder of their son. Release of the first footage of the parents carrying Babak’s mutilated body, provoked a lot of criticism and questions. The legal center of Breathing in Confinement, the news organ of the Prisoners’ Rights League in Iran, has investigated the legal considerations of this murder case.
It should be noted that Babak Khorramdin, born in 1974, had a Master’s Degree in Cinema from the College of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran and worked as a university professor and lecturer in art schools and colleges.
Babak Khorramdin’s resume include “Bur Bijadeh Rang” 2007 (22 minutes), “Tuesday: Mom” 2009 (9 minutes), “Rozan (Gleam)” 2010 (42 minutes), “Elegy For Yashar “2013 made in London (72 minutes) etc.
In 2009, he received the Best Short Story Film Award for “Bur Bijadeh Rang” at Asa International Film Festival (Humanitarian Films), for which he also won several other awards.
Explanations on the cases of murders committed by Akbar Khorramdin and his wife:
A) Characteristics
Perpetrators:
Akbar Khorramdin, 81, is a retired colonel who has been in the Iran-Iraq war zone for 69 months. He and his 74-year-old wife, named Iran, have killed two of their children as well as their son-in-law.
Victims:
1- Arezoo Khorramdin, born in 1972, married, was killed in 2018
2- Babak Khorramdin, born in 1974, single, was killed in 2021
3- Faramarz their son in law, was killed in 2011
B) What happened
Both cases of child murder have been carried out in the same way. Arezoo and Babak were given sedative medication by their mother and after going unconscious, were stabbed to death by their father. Then Akbar Khorramdin and his wife took the bodies to the bathroom to mutilate them, and then they put the body pieces in garbage bags and left them in several trash cans in various parts of the city.
The murder of their son-in-law named Faramarz in 2011 was carried out by the joint decision of Akbar Khorramdin and his wife Iran, and according to them, with the knowledge of their daughter Arezoo. Then, together, they transferred the body to the bathroom, where Akbar Khorramdin mutilated it, put its pieces in garbage bags, and left them in the trash cans in different parts of the city.
The motivational aspect of the murders is discussed at the end of this article.
These murders can be discussed in two categories:
1- Murder of their children, Arezoo and Babak
2- Murder of their son in law, Faramarz
1- Legal aspects of murdering their children
According to Article 301 of the Islamic Penal Code, the murderer will be sentenced to retribution unless the perpetrator is the victim’s father or any of his or her paternal ancestors.
Explanation: As per the law, the punishment for premeditated murder is retribution (death sentence). However, according to Islamic jurisprudence as well as the Islamic Penal Code, if a father kills his child, the death sentence will not be applicable to him and therefore, the father will not be retaliated against (articles 220 and 612). It is also worth mentioning that according to the Islamic Penal Code, father has the right to beat or even kill his child. In another word, contrary to the internationally recognized rights, father has a legal permission to commit these types crimes and is legally guaranteed of not being punished.
According to Article 220 of the Islamic Penal Code, a father or paternal grandfathers who kill their child will not be retaliated against and will be only sentenced to pay a ransom to the heir of the victim as well as some other punishments.
According to Article 612 of the Islamic Penal Code, anyone who commits premeditated murder and has no plaintiffs or has a plaintiffs, but they have not requested for retaliation, or else for whatever reason, retaliation does not apply to the perpetrator, the court will sentence the perpetrator to 3 to 10 years in prison if the action disrupts the order and security of the society, or if there is the concern of encouragement of either the perpetrator or the others to commit such a crime.
Therefore, the punishment of a father who has murdered his own child, if his action does not disturb the order of the society or there is no concern of encouragement of either him or the others to commit such a crime, he will be acquitted and saved from the punishment.
Punishment imposed on the mother for complicity in the crime:
According to Article 127 of the Islamic Penal Code, if the Sharia law or penal law does not provide a specific punishment for the accomplice, their punishment will be as follows:
a) In crimes where the legal punishment is death or life in prison, the accomplice will be sentenced to fifth- or sixth-degree imprisonment.
b) In crimes that necessitates ta’zir, their punishment will be 1 to 2 degrees lower than that of the main perpetrator.
As per the Note 2: In accordance with paragraph T of this article, if for any reason retaliation is not applicable, the punishment of the accomplice shall be applied according to the ta’zir of the main perpetrator.
According to this article and Note 2 thereof, the punishment of the mother as an accomplice should be 1 to 2 degrees lower than the punishment of the main perpetrator. Given that the punishment for a crime committed by the father is in the category of 4th degree imprisonment, i.e. 3 to 10 years of imprisonment, the mother’s punishment will be fifth or sixth degree imprisonment, i.e. imprisonment of 6 months to 5 years.
Considerations about child murder
The exoneration of the father from the punishment of child murder in Iranian law is contrary to internationally recognized rights which practically encourages the murder of children and intensifies the violence used. In fact, we are witnessing an increasing trend of committing such crimes that hurts the public conscience and threatens the peace of society. Many cases of such crimes however, are not reported in the media and remain hidden.
The followings are examples of three similar murder cases reported recently:
1- In June 2020, Romina Ashrafi, a 14-year-old girl, was brutally beheaded by her father in the City of Talesh. An important point in this case was that the father had previously investigated about the allocated punishment and was well aware of the major legal flaw in this regard.
2- In another crime committed on June 15, 2020, in the City of Kerman, Reyhaneh Ameri was killed by her father with an ax.
3- On December 16, 2020, a 21-year-old girl named Azam was killed by her father near Khairabad village in the City of Najafabad and her body was left in the deserts of Aliabad village.
N.B: it is not only the father who kills his child, but sometimes brothers, uncles, etc. also commit an honor killing, but to escape retribution, they declare the father as a murderer. This is especially common in cases where brothers commit murder, and fathers claims to have committed the crime only to save their sons.
2- The legal aspects of murdering Faramarz, the perpetrator’s son in law
According to Article 232: By even onetime confessing to premeditated murder, the crime will be proven.
According to Article 207 of the Islamic Penal Code: If a Muslim is killed, the killer will be retaliated against and the accomplice will be sentenced to 3 to 15 years in prison.
Also, according to Article 208 of the Islamic Penal Code, anyone who commits premeditated murder and has no plaintiffs, or has plaintiffs but they have not request for retaliation, and the crime has disturbed the public order or caused the concern of encouragement of either the perpetrator or the others to commit similar crimes, the perpetrator will be sentenced to imprisonment of 3 to 10 years.
Considering the confession of Akbar Khorramdin and his wife and the existing evidence, the premeditated murder of Faramarz is proven, and if Faramarz’s blood owners demand retribution, Akbar Khorramdin will be sentenced to death. Given that his accomplice was his daughter Arezoo, who herself was later killed, the issue of complicity does not apply to this case. However, in the case of Akbar Khorramdin’s wife, Ms. Iran, due to her unclear role in facilitating the crime, and only the fact that she has confessed to persuading the perpetrator for committing the crime, according to the type of the crime and degrees of ta’zir – she will be sentenced to ta’zir.
Legal considerations
According to Article 207, an important point is whether the victims was Muslim. As such, if the victim is not a Muslim and is so called an infidel, the killer will not be punished in the same way as of other murders. According to the law, there are some prerequisites for the murderer to be sentenced to retaliation, and in the absence of any of these prerequisites, retaliation will not be applicable. From the point of view of jurisprudence and penal law, one of the conditions for retribution is the equality of the murderer and the victim in religion. All Shiite jurists believe that a Muslim should not be retaliated for killing an infidel unless a Muslim is accustomed to killing an infidels of the Dhimmi type (the infidels or non-Muslims who live in a Muslim country and accepted to cooperate with the government and follow the rules and pay Jizyah).
Perpetrators’ motivation
Regarding the motivation for the crime or “mens rea”, Akbar Khorramdin and his wife have claimed that all three victims were wrongdoers. They said Faramarz was a smuggler and Arezoo was a pervert who invited many boys home, as was Babak who invited his girl students home and forced his mother to serve them. The perpetrators also thanked God for being successful in killing the victims.
As per Note 2 of Article 295 of the Islamic Penal Code: If a person kills someone believing that he or she deserves retaliation, but this is not proven to the court, the murder will be considered as second-degree murder. However, if he proves his claim that the victim deserved retaliation, both death sentence and the sentence of paying blood money will be revoked.
Depending on the circumstances and the level of expertise of the defendants’ lawyers in the case, citing to this article, they may manage to reduce the punishment or even revoke it, especially in the case of Faramarz.
So far, many murderers, either referring to fatwas or personal inference, have been acquitted. As an examplewe can refer to the case of killing five people by six members of Basij from Ali Asghar headquarter in Kerman’s Arg Mosque, in 2002, whose motives were said to be fighting against perversion and alcohol consumption. Though it was later proved that the victims were married. Contrary to the other murder cases, however, with the help of the judiciary, the perpetrators were released from the prison and after 17 years when they obtained the blood owners’ consent, the case was closed.
Proof of murder even with a onetime confession of the accused according to Article 232, requires a separate discussion, especially in Iran’s legal system where the confession of the accused is the most important evidence to prove a crime. If the accused confesses to a crime, the confession is valid and no other evidence is required, unless the judge, investigates the evidence and find them contrary to the confession, in which case the judge will conduct an investigation and will refer to the evidence in his final verdict. As it was mentioned above, this is another way for escaping the punishment where the father confesses to killing his child to save his other child who is the real murderer.