IRAN: MINOR HANGED IN PUBLIC IN KARAJ

17-year-old Alireza Mollasoltani was publically hanged in Karaj (west of Tehran) early this morning.
He was convicted of stabbing Ruhollah Dadashi, the Iranian champion of weightlifting.
The state-run Fars news agency reported that, before he was hanged from a crane, Alireza was crying loudly and asking for forgiveness while calling for his mother and some religious figures.
He was sent to the gallows at the scene of the crime in Pooneh Street.
The teenager said at his trial he had killed only in self-defence.
A large crowd of people had gathered to witness the hanging and security forces were present "to ensure the sentence was carried out without any glitches," the official IRNA news agency reported.
Alireza Mollasoltani was born on December 24, 1993. He was still a minor at the time of the execution. After the hanging, Ali Rezwanmanesh, the representative of the Judiciary present at the scene of execution, told news reporters that "Alireza was not a minor, according to Sharia, since in the Sharia the lunar calender is used and the years are shorter."
The Islamic lunar calendar is some 11 days shorter than the solar calendar, with 354 days a year.