Mostafa Karimzadeh Hanged for Drug Offences in Isfahan;

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Isfahan (Dastgerd) Central Prison on 22 September 2026. His identity has been established as 53-year-old Mostafa Karimzadeh from Boroujerd. He was arrested two years ago and sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court.

An informed source told IHRNGO: “Mostafa used to run a car dealership and was in good financial standing. To expand his business, he took out a commercial loan to purchase vehicles and also borrowed 300 million Tomans from a loan shark with a seven-month repayment deadline. However, the car market stagnated, leaving him unable to sell the vehicles or settle his debts. Under intense pressure from both the bank and the loan shark, Mostafa sold his home, but his financial distress persisted."

The informed source added: "The loan shark subjected Mostafa’s wife and children to daily harassment. Having lost everything, Mostafa resorted out of sheer desperation to drug dealing. After just one or two transactions, he was arrested on the highway while transporting 8.3 kilograms of heroin and crack approximately two years and eight months ago. The true tragedy unfolded while Mostafa was in prison: the loan shark continued his harassment, eventually threatening Mostafa’s 18-year-old daughter, a hairdresser, demanding that she submit to him for six months to clear her father’s debt."

The source continued: "While Mostafa was incarcerated, the loan shark abducted his daughter off the street and held her captive for five days, during which she was repeatedly raped. On the fifth day, after preparing breakfast for the man, the young woman struck him in the head from behind with a stone, killing him. She immediately telephoned the police herself to report both the five days of rape and his death. She is currently imprisoned on murder charges, and the family of the deceased loan shark is demanding qisas (retribution in kind) for this young rape survivor, although a final verdict has not yet been issued by the court."

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year since 2021. According to IHRNGO’s 2025 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 795 people were executed for drug-related charges, of which only 0.18% were announced by official sources. 13% of all drug-related executions in 2025 were Baluch minorities while they represent 2-6% of Iran’s population.

In December 2025, IHRNGO published a report titled “A Village of Graves: Widespread and Systematic Drug Executions in Iran,” which provides an overview of drug laws and documents the systematic violation of due process and fair trial rights in drug cases.