IRAN: Iran hanging stalled by heart attack

Hangings often attract large crowds in Iran

A convicted Iranian murderer has been spared from a public hanging after he suffered a heart attack when the noose was placed around his neck, newspapers reported.

 However, it is only a temporary reprieve.

 The Iranian daily, Qods, said that after Mohammad Hadi, 55, has recovered in hospital, the hanging would be carried out as planned under Islamic law.

 Hadi had been sentenced to death in the central city of Khomeini Shahr, near Isfahan, for battering to death a man who had come to his home to buy drugs.

 The newspaper reported that Hadi had hidden the body in his basement, but had to move it when his wife started having nightmares.

 Hadi then moved the corpse to the desert, but police found it and tracked down the killer.

 But the execution did not go as planned.

 Sharia law

 "When the Koran was recited ahead of him being hanged, he suffered a heart attack," the report said.

 It added: "When he has recovered, he can be hanged."

 Under Iran's Islamic Sharia law, murderers are executed unless they are pardoned by their victims' next of kin.

 The death penalty is imposed for murder, rape, armed robbery, blasphemy and serious drug offences.

 Last month, 5 convicted rapists were publicly hanged from cranes at 2 sites in the capital Tehran, watched by thousands of people.