Iran executes wrestler who drew global attention

Tehran executed wrestler Navid Afkari on Saturday morning in Adelabad prison. The Islamic republic has convicted him of stabbing a water supply company's employee during protests against Iran's Shiite theocracy in 2018.

Tehran:Iran has executed a wrestler for allegedly murdering a man after President Donald Trump asked for the 27-year-old condemned man's life to be spared.

"The retaliation sentence against Navid Afkari, the killer of Hassan Turkman, was carried out this morning in Adelabad prison in Shiraz," state TV quoted the chief justice of Fars province Kazem Mousavi as saying on Saturday.

Afkari's case had drawn the attention of a social media campaign that portrayed him and his brothers as victims targeted over participating in protests against Iran's Shiite theocracy in 2018. Authorities accused Afkari of stabbing a water supply company's employee in the southern city of Shiraz amid the unrest.

Iran broadcast the wrestler's televised confession last week. The segment resembled hundreds of other suspected coerced confessions aired over the last decade in the Islamic republic.

The state TV segment showed blurred police documents and described the killing as a "personal dispute" without elaborating. It said Afkari's cellphone had been in the area and it showed surveillance footage of him walking down a street, talking on his phone.

The case revived a demand inside the country to stop carrying out the death penalty.

AP