WARNING, DISTRESSING CONTENT: Iranian man Sajjad Heydari avoided harsher penalty under Islamic law after victim Mona Heydari’s parents pardoned him for the brutal honour killing in Ahvaz in 2022
An Iranian man who decapitated his wife and paraded her severed head through the streets has been handed an eight-year prison sentence. He evaded a more severe punishment after her parents reportedly chose not to invoke Iran’s Islamic law of retribution.
As per court proceedings, Mona Heydari, a mother of one, was merely 17 when she was dragged from a vehicle outside her family home and murdered in February 2022. Her spouse, Sajjad Heydari, along with his brother Heydar, carried out the horrific killing in Ahvaz, the capital of the southwestern Khuzestan Province.
A judiciary spokesperson confirmed that the lenient sentence was issued because Mona’s parents had “pardoned” him for the murder instead of demanding retribution.
Mona, who was wedded at just 12, initially fled her abusive husband and escaped to Turkey with another man, according to court testimony, reports the Express US.
Heydari had reportedly rejected Mona’s pleas for a divorce. Her father, identified as Javid in local reports, eventually found her and persuaded her to return to Iran.
According to the BBC, her father allegedly utilised Interpol to locate his daughter and returned her to her violent husband, where her spouse – who is also her cousin – killed her, alleging she had brought dishonour upon him.
Court spokesperson Massud Setayeshi confirmed that Heydari was sentenced to seven and a half years for murder, along with an additional eight months for intentional assault.
His brother, who disposed of his sister-in-law’s severed body, received a 45-month prison sentence for complicity in intentional homicide.
The court heard how the victim’s father defended organising her marriage at age 12 to a relative, claiming that the violence she suffered in the relationship was normal. Mona was just 14 when she gave birth to their son.
Her father praised the husband they had chosen for her as a fitting partner, highlighting his work ethic and insisting that he provided the ‘best life’ for his daughter. Javid told the court: “She was not forced to marry, and in fact, the husband provided her with the very best of lives.
“It’s true, there was fighting between them, and sometimes there was violence, and she would return home, but she only stayed for two or three days, and then he would pick her up, and life would return to normal.
“These fights between husband and wife are completely normal, and I don’t think there was a problem as she did not ask for a divorce.”
Mona’s father acknowledged, in hindsight, she may have been too young for marriage, but insisted: “We got a certificate of confirmation that she was physically old enough to marry, and there was no physical problem in the relationship.”
The family alleged the husband felt shamed and dishonoured after his wife escaped to Turkey with another man. The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) reported the victim was forced to wed her cousin at the age of 12.
They also revealed the young girl purportedly endured domestic abuse and whenever she voiced a desire to divorce her husband, her family pressured her to return home for the sake of their child, who was born when she was just 14.
Local media reported the husband’s brother hid the girl’s body in a blanket and disposed of it, whilst the husband exhibited his wife’s head.
In the footage, the suspect is seen grinning broadly as he clutches the teenager’s head, strolling past local residents. Meanwhile, the state-run news site Rokna was allegedly closed down for publishing the story and the video at the time of the incident.
The NCRI’s Women’s Committee said: “Not a week goes by without some form of honour killing making headlines. The clerical regime’s failure to criminalise these murders has led to a catastrophic rise in honour killings.
“In a report published in 2019, the state-run Sharq daily newspaper wrote that an annual average of 375 to 450 honour killings are recorded in Iran. The murders are more prevalent [the areas of] in Khuzestan, Kurdistan, Ilam, and Sistan and Baluchestan.”