AFP, Aug 19, 2008 – Iran’s judiciary has approved the death sentence for two young men who committed murder as minors under the age of 18, Kargozaran newspaper said on Tuesday.
One of the two convicts, identified as Amir, had “unintentionally stabbed a young man to death in a childish fight when he was 16, in November 2005,” the report said, adding his execution was expected to take place within days.
A court in the southern city of Shiraz sentenced Amir to death and the verdict has been approved by the office of Iran’s judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, it added.
The second man, Amir Karim, who was convicted of murder four years ago when he was 17, has had his death sentence confirmed by an appeal court. But the verdict still has to be approved by the Islamic republic’s Supreme Court.

Karim is being held in Mahabad prison in northwest Iran.
Iran is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibit the execution of minors who were under the age of 18 at the time of the offence.