Iranian Woman Dies Of Heart Attack, Still Gets Hanged: Report

Iran executed woman: A woman in Iran named Zahra Ismaili died of cardiac arrest right before she was to be executed. She was allegedly hanged after she died.

Ismaili, a mother of two, was convicted for killing her husband, a senior official in Iran's Ministry of Intelligence. Her lawyer Omar Moradi claimed that she was made to watch 16 get executed in front of her as she waited for her turn. During this, she collapsed and died. Moradi has alleged that the state still carried on with her execution. The lawyer gave his account of the execution in a Facebook post in which he also mentioned Ismaili's death certificate which had cardiac arrest written as cause of her death. The post has now been deleted from the social media site.

Iran Human Rights Monitor( HRM) quoted Moradi, "It states cardiac arrest as the cause of death because yesterday 16 men were hanged before her eyes. Zahra’s heart stopped and she died before she was taken to the gallows." In his client's defence, the lawyer also said that Ismaili's husband was abusive to her and their daughters which made her take action in self-defence.

The incident took place Rajai Shahr Prison in Iran's capital, Tehran. According to human rights organisations, the number of women executed in Iran is at a worrisome hike. So far, 114 women have been executed since 2013 when president Hassan Rouhani took charge, the HRM website wrote. Zahra Ismaili was the third woman hanged by the state in the last few weeks.