ABC blog

Mohammad Masoud Zahedian, head of the Anti-Drug Police Force under Iran’s armed forces, has voiced strong support of capital punishment for the country’s drug offenders. In an interview with the ISNA news service, Zahedian said that “In our country’s conditions, given our position neighboring the world’s biggest drug producer and the fact that the trafficking activities of these merchants of death have reached their highest level in various countries, the death penalty is perhaps the best punishment for drug offenders.”

Zahedian demanded tougher punishments for Iran’s drug offenders, claiming that traffickers are met with harsh treatment throughout the Americas and Middle East. He also criticized recent efforts toward legal reform: “There are those these days who, perhaps looking to sow social disorder, seek to do away with the death penalty for drug traffickers.”

The police commander further stated that “Execution is the only approach for traffickers who have not changed in prison and for whom there are no means to reform. Another side of this is that some of these traffickers end up in armed confrontations and hunted and arrested in security operations… At the time of arrest, some of them have arms and ammunition on par with the armed forces.”

Zahedian’s comments come in the wake of a November 23 Majles vote to table a measure which would repeal capital punishment for many drug crimes cases, introducing a punishment of 25- to -30-years’ incarceration for those defendants who were not armed while trafficking and have not been previously sentenced to capital punishment or a jail term of ten years or more.

Read the original Persian reporting at Radio Zamaneh: https://www.radiozamaneh.com/310568