27-Year-Old Married Iranian Man, His Male Lover Sentenced To Death For Adultery

Adultery will cost the lives of a married Iranian man and his male lover as they have been sentenced to death by Iran's supreme court in Tehran.

Earlier this year, the man's wife had presented cops with video evidence of her husband's infidelity, according to Daily Mail.

The married man, aged 27, and his 33-year-old lover are expected to be hanged even though the man’s wife begged the courts to show mercy, reported The Sun.

If a victim’s family forgives those who have been accused of a crime, they can be given a jail sentence or be pardoned, according to Iranian Sharia law. It is the legal system of Islam and was derived from the religion's central religious text called the Quran, and fatwas, which are the rulings of Islamic scholars.

Even though the woman asked for clemency, her father didn't accept his son-in-law’s infidelity and demanded that he and his lover be killed.

In 2020, Iran carried out 246 executions, but just one in public, according to human rights group Amnesty International. There was no breakdown of the number of executions carried out for adultery. Adultery is generally punishable by stoning under the Sharia law, but in 2013 Tehran changed the law that allowed judges to choose how to execute the accused.

Sharia, an Arabic word, originally meant path or way, and refers to the revealed law of God, and it informs all the aspects of the daily life of a Muslim. Mu'amalat, which means social relations and human interactions, and ibadat meaning acts or rituals of worship are the two branches of Sharia. There are smaller branches asn well that include marriage, prayers, fasting and finances, among other things.

Forbidden, recommended, discouraged, permitted and obligatory are the five categories where all actions are put, and crimes fall into three categories - hudud (considered against God and the most severe), qisas (the accused is subjected to the same affliction as the victim) and tazir (the least serious and at the discretion of a judge).

In different countries, the way the Sharia law is interpreted varies, and it mostly depends on the government in power. For instance, when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan this year, they brought an extreme interpretation of Sharia law, and didn't let women from leaving the house alone without an adult male relative.