Nine hanged in Iran

Nine people convicted of murder have been hanged, including a woman, Iran’s state media said today.

The hangings took place yesterday in Evin prison north of Tehran after the country’s Supreme Court approved the death sentences, the Iran newspaper said.

The woman, named only by her first name of Tayyabeh, was found guilty of burying her eight-year-old stepdaughter alive in a forest near a Tehran suburb.

Murder, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping and drug trafficking are all punishable with the death penalty under Iran’s Islamic penal law.