Former Mayor Released on Bail

Mohammad Ali Najafi, the former mayor of Tehran who was convicted of murdering his wife Mitra Ostad, has been released on bail.

Najafi was convicted of first-degree murder and the court sentenced him to qisas, or “retribution,” for the survivors. However, after the sentencing, his wife’s family announced that they had relinquished their right to retribution. According to Najafi’s lawyer, Hamid Reza Goodarzi, “with the relinquishment of the right to retribution by blood relatives, the detention warrant for my client was changed and he was released from prison by posting bail.” He added that his client posted a property deed worth one billion tomans (approximately $86,000) as bail. “According to law,” he said, “after the right to retribution was relinquished, the legal process of prosecution for first-degree murder ended as well.”

Najafi was also sentenced to two years in prison for the illegal possession of a firearm but this sentence is not final and Najafi can appeal it with the Iranian Supreme Court.

The trial of Tehran’s former mayor ended on July 22, so he has spent just three months in prison.

As a politician, Najafi had a long record of service in the Islamic Republic, and had been recognized as an educated, intelligent, capable man who was in no way controversial. 

But on May 28, he murdered his wife by shooting her five times. The news shocked Iran, leading to speculations about the couple’s personal life and whether he had moved in with his young partner before divorcing his first wife.

Reports about the murder were accompanied by photographs of the couple, showing Mohammad Ali Najafi looking lovingly at his wife Mitra Ostad or resting his hand on her shoulder. In the photographs, Najafi looks as the public has most often seen him, wearing a formal suit and sporting gray stubble. Ostad, Najafi’s second wife, looks young and fashionable, wearing heavy make-up and with her highlighted hair poking out from underneath her headscarf, not quite fitting the image of the traditional wife of an Islamic Republic official.

In his confession Najafi said that Mitra Ostad “had come to ruin my life. She constantly threatened to reveal my secrets and ruin my life. She even wanted to carry out her threats in an interview.”

Related Coverage:

Iranians Flabbergasted by Confessions of the Former Mayor, May 30, 2019

Former Tehran Mayor Kills Wife, Shocking the Nation, May 29, 2019

The Rise and Fall of Mohammad Ali Najafi, May 29, 2019