IRAN using a brutal system of executions and torture to dish out its twisted version of justice.

With hangings from cranes, electric shocks and guillotined fingers, brutal punishments are meted out for even the pettiest of crimes.

And today Prime Minister Rishi Sunak decried the "barbaric" regime after Brit man Alireza Akbari was executed by Tehran.

Akbari was accused of being an MI6 spy – but he claimed he was forced to be give a confession after being tortured.

The dual British-Iranian citizen was a former defence official accused of"corruption" and "passing on intelligence".

"This was a callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of their own people," said Rishi.

READ MORE ON IRAN

Inside Iran’s terror sleeper cells in UK & US as uranium seized at Heathrow

I spent 4 years in world’s worst prison as I was whipped & they killed my husband

Akbari's death is just one of the hundreds of people believed to have been executed in Iran since the start of 2022.

Norway-based activist group Iran Human Rights estimates last year alone the regime killed more than 500 people.

And the number is expected to rise again in 2023 as Tehran attempts to crack down on mass protests nationwide.

The Iranian regime has been pushed to the brink amid mass unrest over the brutal killing of Masha Amini.

Most read in The Sun

Executions are carried out both in private and in public – with prisoners often left to dangle as they are hanged condemned to a die a slow agonising death.

Iran comes second only to China when it comes to number of executions worldwide – but with a much smaller population.

Under its Islamic Penal Code, a death sentence can be handed down for crimes such as kidnapping, adultery, drinking alcohol and political crimes as well as murder.

Victims can also have their fingers amputated for counts of petty theft – leaving just the thumb and palm.

Children as young as 12 can also be sentenced to death, which is against international law. 

And torture is believed to rife in Iran's prisons, with electric shocks, floggings, water boarding and sexual violence used on prisoners, according to human rights groups.

In 2018 six kids were executed, including two child brides who killed their abusive adult husbands.  

A year later two teenage boys were flogged and executed for rape without telling them or their families – sparking outrage over child executions.

Many of those executed are tortured into confessing, including Iran's national wrestling champion, Navid Afkari, 27, who was accused of killing a state security guard during the anti-government protests.

Stoning to death for adultery also remains on the statute books, though the latest figures show none have been carried out recently.

Among those facing currently facing the death penalty for drinking alcohol are a 73-year-old retired pilot.

He would normally just be flogged, but prosecutors have demanded his execution as it’s his third such offence, says Iran Human Rights Monitor.

Electric shocks in prisons see victims strapped into a chair and forced to confess to crimes with the power being turned up if they don’t.

One victim told Amnesty: “The electric shocks were the worst form of torture.

“It felt like my entire body was being pierced with millions of needles. If I refused to answer their questions, they would raise the voltage levels and give me stronger electric shocks.

“I would shake violently and there would be a strong burning sensation coursing through my whole body.”

In most cases, prisoners hit with the death penalty are hanged.

But often, this is not done on a drop, where death comes quick after the neck is broken and instead construction cranes are used.

The condemned person is hoisted up on a neck noose and strangled in a slow and agonising way.

Crowds are encouraged to watch and some executions are televised – with several people sometimes hanged at one time.

In a sick twist to the brutal mass hangings it carries out, those awaiting execution have been made to watch others die.

One woman on her way to the to the gallows, Zahra Ismaili, suffered a heart attack after seeing 16 men hang in front of her – but her lifeless body was strung up anyway.

And there is also the twisted "eye for an eye" punishments – were prisoners can be maimed or executed by victim's grieving families.

The laws –  known as Qisas – sees prisoners subject to brutal punishments designed to inflict as much pain as possible in retaliation, including having eyes gouged out, hands chopped off and even the mass, public hangings.

In one chilling case, a man in 2021 was sentenced to be blinded after he left a neighbour unable to see in one eye during a fight back in 2018.

Shocking executions and barbaric punishments continue to be carried out under hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi who – despite activists claiming he has a bloody history steeped in murder – won a landslide victory to become president earlier this year.

In the past, Raisi – known by some as The Butcher – has allegedly ordered the torture of pregnant women, had prisoners thrown off cliffs, and had people flogged with electric cords.

He earned his sick nickname over his alleged involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in the 1980s.

Read More on The Sun

I’m the world’s best boss – I gave employee HALF my lottery jackpot for helping me

Shoppers go wild for Home Bargains shampoo that’s £10 cheaper than elsewhere

Some 30,000 men, women and children held in prisons across Iran were lined up and shot against a wall within just a few months, according to those battling to oust the ultra conservative regime.

It's reported Raisi was a key member of the so-called "Death Commission" which ordered those people to be killed in the 1988 massacre – which Iran has never acknowledged.

Source: Read Full Article