[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

[irani]

PAKDASHT, Iran (AFP) - An Iranian serial killer convicted of kidnapping and murdering 21 people, most of them little boys, was publicly flogged and hanged south of Tehran before thousands of spectators.


Mohammad Bijeh, branded "the vampire of the desert" in the Iranian press, was lashed 100 times, stabbed in the back by a furious brother of one victim before a blue nylon rope was placed around his neck by the mother of another murdered child.


The 22-year-old killer, who remained calm and kept silent throughout the punishment, was then hauled into the air by a crane to cries from the crowd of "make him twist".


"Dance and think of what you did to our kids," shouted one father, as Bijeh was throttled to death over several minutes. Hanging by a crane does not involve the neck being broken.


Few tears were shed during the hanging. Instead, the crowd vented its rage.


"Hit him harder, the b*stard," yelled Ali Khosravi, whose 10-year-old son Kayvan was killed and then burned by Bijeh.


Bijeh also reportedly ate the leg of his one of his victims just to see what it tasted like.


"This is the best day of my life. I would like to strangle him and burn him myself," added Khosravi as stood holding the hand of his eight-year-old daughter Sarah.


Bijeh and his accomplice, Ali Baghi, were arrested in September 2004. Over a period of more than a year, they reportedly lured children into the desert by saying they were going to dig out rabbits or foxes from their burrows.


The pair -- who both worked in a brickworks -- reportedly stunned their victims with blows from a stone, sexually abused them and buried the bodies in shallow graves in the desert south of Tehran.


Both were initially sentenced to hang, but in January the Supreme Court ruled that Baghi should instead serve 15 years behind bars.


The crowd on Wednesday also called for Baghi to be hanged.


"He killed my son. He confessed, he has to be executed," said Ali Dad Azimi, the father of nine-year-old Ahmad.


Before being hanged, Bijeh was stripped of his shirt and stood against a post. His hands were tied around the post and he was lashed by several different plain-clothes officials.


The huge crowd, kept back by barbed wire and around 100 members of the security forces, chanted "harder, harder!".


After around 20 lashes, Bijeh started to buckle from the pain of his bloodied back but was able to redress himself.


When Bijeh was placed in a position to be hanged, a young 17-year-old boy -- the brother of victim Rahim Younessi -- managed to break through the barrier and plant a knife in the killer's back.





The mother of one young victim, Milad Kahani, was then invited to place the noose around his neck as he stood there, his hands now tied behind him.

According to the charge sheet read out at the execution, Bijeh was guilty of 21 killings. He had been declared "corrupt on earth" and handed 16 death penalties.

However relatives of the victims here said 26 children were murdered, and vowed the accomplice would also be killed if he ever makes it out of prison.

As the spectacle ended and Bijeh's body was taken away in an ambulance, the angry crowd threw stones at police and soldiers.

The case has drawn huge attention in the Iranian media.

Reports also said the pair picked some of their victims from poor Afghan families who may have been living in Iran (news - web sites) illegally, meaning that some disappearances were not reported to police.

One father said his dead son's kidneys were removed, but authorities have insisted that the duo were not involved in organ trafficking.

Local police have also been criticised for failing to quickly apprehend the pair.

Since the start of the year, Iran has executed nine people, according to AFP witnesses and reports in the Iranian press.

Last year, at least 97 people were put to death in Iran. In 2003 and 2002, a total of 108 and 113 executions were carried out, according to figures from human rights organisation Amnesty International.

Murder, armed attacks, rape, apostasy and drug trafficking of more than five kilograms are punishable by death in Iran.

[irani]

"Again! Kill him again!" people shouted as Mohammad Bijeh's body swayed above the main square of the town of Pakdasht.
An Iranian serial killer convicted of kidnapping and murdering 21 children was publicly flogged and hanged on Wednesday before thousands of spectators in this small Iranian town, 40km (25 miles) south-east of the capital, Tehran.

From the early morning police cars drove through the streets announcing the location and the time of the execution.

"At nine in the main square," they yelled into loudspeakers and thousands responded to these calls. Soon the square was full of people.

Handful of bones

Women and men, young and old, gathered behind a fence built for the occasion. At times they would try to push their way through it and the human chain of policemen that surrounded the place of execution.

Bunches of young boys dangled from trees and lamp posts, and dozens of people crowded the roofs of the surrounding buildings.

In the middle of the square stood a tall crane that would be used for the execution.


Spectators climbed into a tree to get a better look
Just metres away from it, relatives of the victims waited for the police to bring out the man who had murdered their children.

The "desert vampire" is how Mohammad Bijeh had become known to the Iranians.

For one year, Bijeh, 24, a worker at a brick kiln, would trick children into the desert south of Tehran by saying they were going to hunt animals.

There he would kill them. Then he would burn or bury their bodies.

"I looked for my boy for nine months. After nine months all we got was a handful of bones," said Basre Shirzad, 27, whose son was among Bijeh's 21 victims.

Cold comfort

Bijeh's killing spree lasted until he was finally caught six months ago. During the closed trial he confessed to all of his crimes, coolly recounting the details of each murder.

At the time of his capture, he was quoted as saying he wanted to take revenge on society because as a child he had been abused by his stepmother.

"He told everything in detail," Shirzad's husband remembered.

"They showed him a picture of our boy and he told how he snatched him, how he killed him with stones, how he burned him."

At the time, he was quoted as saying he wanted to take revenge on society because as a child he had been abused by his stepmother.

Despite their frustration and anger, Basre and her husband Faril, who are both refugees from Afghanistan, said they would have preferred to see another Islamic law - that of "blood money" - implemented instead of the execution.

"We sold everything while we searched for my son. We have nothing left.

"We have no job. It would have been better if Bijeh had paid money," Shirzad said.

'Happiest day'

But some others thought the execution was the right choice.

"This is the strength of the Islamic tradition. This is true justice," said Mouhammad Nouri, whose 9-year-old son was also among Bijeh's victims.


A huge crowd turned out to see Bijeh die
"This is the happiest day in my life. Apart from the day my late son was born," a father of another boy victim whispered as he watched, mesmerised, Mohammad Bijeh's bulky figure appear on an improvised stage in the square.

The angry cheers filled the air as the court officials carried out the punishment of 100 lashes.

Bijeh was silent and still, but at one point his body shook visibly from the shock of the pain and he began falling down.

His shirt soaking in blood, he was then brought down from the podium.

As he walked up to the crane, the growing roar of the crowd mixed with the chant of the final prayer that mullahs read into the loudspeakers.

Final blow

At that moment, the 17-year-old brother of one of Mohammad Bijeh's victims ran up to him and tried to stab him. But the boy was quickly pushed away by the soldiers.

Then a woman in a black chador, the mother of another victim, walked up to the crane and put the rope around Mohammad Bijeh's neck.

As his body soared into the air above the square, the crowd applauded and cheered.

Some relatives joined in the chanting and applause.

Others stood quietly, their heads raised high, the tearful eyes focused on the dark figure that swayed in the blue sky.

"Maybe it was not a good thing that there were so many children there? It's not good for them to see this," one of the spectators said as the crowd began to thin out and dissolve into Pakdasht's dusty streets.

[irani]

[Saman]

I am not excusing his acts, but we are acting like a bunch of savages. This is mideval and barbaric. This man might deserve to die, I agree. But not in such a manner. It's just wrong...
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Zoroaster's philosophy: Good thoughts, good words, good deeds.
Pâyandeh bâd xâke Irân e mâ!

[haleh]

IRani: Who do you work for?
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Haleh -
There can only be ONE Iran, a FREE one.

[Pasagarde]

[Saman]

[Rasker]

When you put things in perspective, his crimes are a mere drop in the bucket compared with those of the IRI regime! The imprisonment of 70 million people, the deaths of how many thousands? (Millions if you count the war with Iraq [depends how you split the blame between Saddam Hussein and the regime]). A full and just accounting might require an execution assembly line running for many days. Too bad members of government 'gangs' aren't held to the same standards as civilian 'freelance' murderers!
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The Sun Is Rising In The West!Soon It Will Shine on All of Iran!

[perzopolis]

[redux]

[Pasagarde]

[Liberator]

[Saman]

[redux]

[Pasagarde]

This is to those who are against the death penalty:

Who are YOU to decide what would be the proper punishment for such a criminal??? Can you put yourself in the shoes of mothers of his victimes?? how many sleepless nights they will have knowing that the killer of their childeren still alive eating and sleeping and there might be a slight chance of running away from prison??

Put yourself in one of the victim's families shoes, or even worst put yourself in one of the victims, those young kids very molested, tortured and murdered, why should this criminal get away with this?
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"May Ahura Mazda protect this land, this nation, from rancor, from foes, from falsehood, and from drought"

Koroush Kabir