Iran executed a 20-year-old Jewish man who killed a man during a fight in 2022 after the victim’s family refused to negotiate an alternative sentence.

Arvin Ghahremani, 20, was scheduled to be executed in May but received a reprieve after Jewish and human rights groups around the world drew attention to his case.

Ghahremani was arrested more than two years ago, accused of killing a man with whom he had a financial dispute. In a report published Monday in Mizan Onlinean Iranian news agency, the prosecutor of the city of Kermanshah, where Ghahremani lived, gave details of the killing, saying the victim was stabbed five times, including in the back and neck.

The prosecutor said Ghahremani confessed to the crime and the execution took place in accordance with Iranian law after the victim’s family twice refused to refer cases to the Dispute Resolution Board, a government body through which Citizens can negotiate disputes outside of formal justice. system.

Iran’s penal code is based in part on Islamic sharia law, which requires qisas, or retaliation in kind, for certain crimes but allows blood money to be paid to the family of the deceased as an acceptable reward in cases of manslaughter. But according to statements released on Telegram in May by Iranian Jewish leaders, the victim’s family repeatedly refused offers of payment, known as diyat, and the community’s attempts to mediate with Islamic leaders were unsuccessful. failed.

The May statement said the Jewish community had offered to fund a school or mosque named after the deceased, but the offer was not accepted.

The nonprofit Iran Human Rights, which operates from Norway, said Ghahremani was hanged at Kermanshah Central Prison. The group linked Ghahremani’s execution to the explosive conflict between Iran and Israel, which has included a recent volley of strikes and a report Sunday that Iranian leaders prepare ‘strong and complex’ attack in response to recent Israeli bombings against Iranian military installations.

“Amid threats of war with Israel, the Islamic Republic today executed Arvin Ghahremani, a Jewish Iranian citizen,” the group’s director, Mahmood Amiri-Moghadam, said in a statement. “Like many people sentenced to qisas, Arvin’s case and the legal process had significant flaws. However, on top of that, Arvin was Jewish and institutionalized anti-Semitism in the Islamic Republic undoubtedly played a crucial role in the enforcement of his conviction.

Ghahremani was among some 8,500 Jews still living in Iran, following the exodus of most of Iran’s once-large Jewish population after the 1979 revolution that brought Islamic rulers to power.

While Iranian Jews should be cautious about their contacts with the Persian Jewish diaspora, the Jewish community in Kermanshah has drawn attention to Ghahremani’s case by circulating messages on WhatsApp. Many used his Hebrew name, Arvin Netanel Ben Siona. One included a desperate voice note from his mother. “I ask everyone to help pray,” Sonia Saadati said in a tear-filled message in Farsi.