A Tehran prosecutor has reportedly requested the death sentence for a middle-aged man in Tehran for drinking alcohol.
Without naming the citizen, Rokna News reports the man had previously been arrested three times and subjected to 240 lashes for “drinking alcohol”.
Investigations into the latest case are understood to have got under way earlier this year, following a complaint by one of the defendant's neighbors.
Officers went to the defendant’s house and arrested him after he took a breathalyser test. The man has denied drinking alcohol and got into a fight with officers at the police station.
According to Rokna, the prosecutor told the court: "Considering that hadd punishments had been applied to the defendant for previous drinking charges, I request his execution according to the law for his fourth offence."
Hadd crimes are a type of “crime against God” specified in the Islamic Penal Code. At the lower end they are punishable by lashes; at the high end, by death.
In court, according to Rokna, the man again denied the fresh charge. His lawyer said the level of alcohol in his blood was too low to be conclusive, and there might have been a testing error.
The Islamic Republic has sentenced several citizens to death in the past for drinking alcohol. In the latest known case, in March 2021, a Tehran prosecutor had demanded the execution of a retired pilot.
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