Reyhaneh Jabari (Persian:ریحانه جباری c. 1988 - October 25, 2014) was a woman convicted of murdering a former intelligence officer, Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, in Iran. She was in prison from 2007 until her execution by hanging in October 2014 for killing her alleged assailant. She published her story about what happened to her in prison, including solitary confinement. Mohammad Mostafaei was her first lawyer. He published her story in his blog.

Background

Sometime in 2008, when Reyhaneh was 19 years old, she went to a coffee shop and spoke on the phone about her job as an interior decorator. At the end of her phone conversation, two men approached her and asked if she could decorate their office. One of the men introduced himself as Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi. She agreed to their proposal and they took her phone number.

A few days later Sarbandi's friend, believed to be the second man who approached her at the coffee shop, called her about the work and they agreed on the place and time to pick her up by car. After collecting her, they stopped along the way, went to a pharmaceutical shop and came back to the car with a plastic bag. It was later shown that the bag contained one or more condoms.

On arriving at the building where it was believed that the decoration was going to be done, they went up to the fourth floor, opened the door and the whole apartment was dusty as though no-one had lived there for a long time. The contractor, Reyhaneh, immediately became reluctant, given the condition of the apartment and in fear left the door open, but Sarbandi ordered her to close the door and that she should take off her scarf. She refused and he approached her amorously, but she resisted and moved away from him. Sarbandi then became angry and came menacingly towards her and said that she could not disobey him. A fight then ensued and Reyhaneh managed to grab a knife and stab him. Sarbandi was still coming after her, but she freed herself from him and was just about to escape through the door when the second man, identified as Sheikhi, rushed into the apartment and engaged in a fight with Sarbandi. The fight between the two men allowed Reyhaneh to escape. She managed to reach home later that night.

United Nation's human rights rapporteur in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, said that she was offered to be hired by Sarbandi for redesigning his office and took her to an apartment where she was sexually abused by him. But Sarbandi's family insisted that it was premeditated murder as Reyhaneh had confessed of buying a knife two days before the killing.

Arrest and trial

The police traced her home that night and she was arrested at about 2:00 AM. After her arrest, she was kept in solitary confinement for two months, without any access to family or lawyer. In 2009, she was sentenced to death by a Tehran court. According to Amnesty, though she had accepted to have stabbed Sarbandi, she is said to have alleged that someone else in the house had killed him.

Amnesty International, UN, European Union, and the Gatestone Institute have lobbied for her life to be spared.

There were campaigns launched on social media to halt her execution, but Tasnim reported that Jabari's relatives failed to gain consent from victim's family for a reprieve. On September 29, 2014, it was announced that her execution was imminent. On October 1, 2014, it was announced that plans to execute her had been halted for the time being.

Death

Reihaneh Jabbari was executed by hanging on 25 October 2014 at dawn at the Gohardasht Prison, north of Karaj.

International Reactions

• Amnesty International commented that she was convicted after a flawed investigation and that her claims of another person in the home who killed Sarbandi were not properly investigated