Iran's 'desert vampire' executed

Iran's 'desert vampire' executed

An Iranian serial killer who murdered at least 20 children has been executed in front a large crowd of spectators.
Mohammad Bijeh, 24, dubbed "the Tehran desert vampire" by Iran's press, was flogged 100 times before being hanged.

A brother of one of his young victims stabbed him as he was being punished. The mother of another victim was asked to put the noose around his neck.

The execution took place in Pakdasht south of Tehran, near where Bijeh's year-long killing spree took place.

The killer was hoisted about 10 metres into the air by a crane and slowly throttled to death in front of the baying crowd.

Hanging by a crane - a common form of execution in Iran - does not involve a swift death as the condemned prisoner's neck is not broken.

Calm and silent

The killer collapsed twice during the punishment, although he remained calm and silent throughout.

Spectators, held back by barbed wire and about 100 police officers, chanted "harder, harder" as judicial officials took turns to flog Bijeh's bare back before his hanging.


The condemned collapsed twice during the pre-execution flogging
Bijeh was stabbed by the 17-year-old brother of victim Rahim Younessi, AFP reported, as he was being readied to be hanged.

Officials then invited the mother Milad Kahani to put the blue nylon rope around his neck.

The crimes of Mohammed Bijeh and his accomplice Ali Baghi had drawn massive attention in the Iranian media.

They reportedly tricked children to go with them into the desert south of Tehran by saying they were going to hunt animals. They then poisoned or knocked their victims out, sexually abused them and buried them in shallow graves.

They were found guilty of the murders of between 19 and 22 people, but local people believe the toll to be higher.

Baghi has been given a 15 year prison term.



superb. all he deserved.

It is punishments like that which would act as a deterant, not a few years in prison.

I don't like the state killing people, but I like the fact that the victims family members got to help. He and his accomplice should've been totally handed over to the families, with the understanding that any punishment they enacted would not be prosecuted as a crime.

If we want to get rid of crime, we don't need to hang people from cranes, we just need to set prison standards at or below the poverty line, and start handing out 20-30 year sentences. That'd be a start. Exile to a desert island would be a good idea too.

Adrian

I think it's sick. Both the crimes of this man and his execution.

I agree

It does seem abit extreme to hang a man from a crane and try to induce crowd voilence like that ,although i hope the man suffered for his crimes. It would be much better to have just shot him surely ? at least that way it would have been quick and over with .

that's the point though, he suffered a slow horrible death.

as he should have.

I don't agree with killing people as a punishment at all- it makes the authoroties who allow it just as bad as the murderer.

I think that a lifetime prison sentance would have been a suitable punishment, and if you look at the amount of people who can't cope with lifetime sentances and who kill themselves (Harold Shipman, for example) you will see that it is not the easy way out. i think it's much more of a punishment to lock people up for the rest of their lives than to kill them- that is the easy way out, they would never have to face up to what they had done, and it is probably much more depressing to be locked up and completely cut of from the world than to be dead and so have no recolection of it.

No it doesn't. He killed for no reason. The people he killed where innocent., they had done nothing wrong. For that he deserves to be punished.

Prison should be a horrible place, with nothing for prisoners to do but sit and think about what they've done. Instead they have tv's and entertainment and gyms and things to do. That is not right.

True , maybe its the sun on my back or i'm just getting older but there is apart of me that thinks its too much and behaving like animals . sometimes 2 wrongs dont make a right ?