IRANIAN boxer Mohammad Javad Vafaei-Sani is facing execution for a third time after being convicted of “corruption on earth” during anti-government protests in 2019.
The 29-year-old athlete was arrested in March 2020 and accused of setting fire to a government building – which he denied.
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It’s claimed that the boxer was subsequently put through horrific “severe physical and psychological torture”, AS reports.
Vafaei-Sani’s case has been commonly compared to wrestler Navid Afkari, 27, who was accused of killing a state security guard during the anti-government protests in 2018 and hanged in 2020.
Vafaei-Sani was convicted in December 2021 of “corruption on earth” – which is considered to be the most serious charge under Iran’s penal code and punishable by death.
His lawyer Babak Paknia said on X that despite the Supreme Court overturning the previous verdict, “the majority opinion of the investigative judges (consultants to the Branch 3 of the Mashhad Revolutionary Court), in opposition to the Supreme Court judges, has again issued a death sentence for ‘corruption on earth’.
“This ruling can be appealed.”
Figures show Iran carries out around 250 executions a year, in addition to a 100 executions of children each year.
The country’s barbaric system of punishments includes hanging from cranes in public, use of horrific electric shocks and flogging.
Vafaei-Sani is one of the many Iranian athletes who have been sentenced to death by the government or killed during protests in recent years.
As reported by Iran Wire, volleyball player Ali Mozafari was killed during protests in 2022.
Footballer Mohammad Ghaemifar was fatally shot by regime forces a month later and was reportedly targeted and cornered in an alley.
And bodybuilder Ehsan Ghasemifar, 32, was killed during protests in December 2022.
He was “surrounded by security forces while livestreaming on Instagram” and his family were urged to say his death was due to a “heart attack”, says Iran Wire.
Other Iranian athletes have suffered the same fate for decades.
Navid Afkari
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Iran hanged champion wrestler Navid Afkari in 2020 on a trumped-up charge of killing a security guard during protests.
He is believed to have been tortured and forced to sign a confession letter.
Handwritten letters from him detailed 50 days of beatings and attempted suffocation.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is about to execute an innocent person,” he said in a final voice message.
Navid was hanged – and his death sparked outrage around the world, with even then US President Donald Trump decrying Tehran.
Habib Khabiri
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Described as the closest thing Iran has ever had to American national hero Kobe Bryant, Habib Khabiri was hanged by Iran.
He was the captain of Iran’s national football team and a hero.
Habib scored a dramatic winning goal in the 1978 World Cup qualifying game against Kuwait.
But he was arrested and executed when he was aged just 29, being hanged for being a member of a dissident group.
He was killed among 40 others at the notorious Evin Prison.
“Habib was the Iranian Kobe Bryant,” commentator Manook Khodabakhshian told Sports Illustrated in 1998.
“Sometimes when I watch Kobe Bryant, I see Habib Khabiri. He was only 16 or 17 when he started to play for the national team. He was a very creative player.
“So young, such a happy guy.”
Mahshid Razaghi
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Another footballer who played alongside Habib, Mahshid Razaghi was a member of the Iranian team that went to the Olympics.
He was arrested for selling anti-government newspapers – and was sentenced to one year in prison in 1980.
But the footie star was never released.
Mahshid was left rotting in jail until 1988 – when he was executed along with a wave of other political prisoners as part of the infamous massacres by the Death Commission.
His brother Ahmad was also executed just days later, with up to 30,000 people estimated to have been killed in the purge.
Foruzan Abdi
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Another high profile athlete, Foruzan Abdi was the captain of the Iranian women’s national team.
She was arrested in 1981 and sentenced for eight years in prison for supporting a dissident group.
Just like Mahshid, she was never released from her prison.
And she was killed along with thousands of others as part of the 1988 purge.
Majid Jamali-Fashi
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Iran killed kickboxer Majid Jamali-Fashi after a show trial which was shown on TV.
He was accused of working for Israeli spies and assassinating a nuclear scientist in Tehran.
Pictures were paraded on TV of an Israeli passport said to be his – only for it to be exposed as one edited from Wikipedia.
Majid is alleged to have been tortured into to confessing, and he is believed to have doomed after being mentioned in a leak by Wikileaks.
He was hanged.
Houshang Montazeralzohour
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Five years after he represented Iran at the Olympics as a wrestler, Houshang Montazeralzohour was executed by firing squad.
He was a national champion in his weight class and competed for the his country at the Summer Olympics in Montreal.
But he was arrested along with 29 others in 1981.
Houshang was allegedly tortured and then shot dead by firing squad.
