Press Trust of India

IRAN - juvenile death penalty to be banned
Iran to ban death penalty for those under 18

Iran will soon enact a law banning death penalty for offenders under 18 years of age.

Iran's judiciary has drafted a Bill to be presented to parliament shortly raising the minimum age for death sentences to 18 from 15 and also excluding under-18s from receiving life terms or lashing as punishment, media in Iran quoted Alireza Jamshidi, Secretary of the Supreme Council for Judicial Development, as saying.

"The new law fully complies with Sharia law and modern judicial developments," he was quoted as saying by Yas-e No newspaper.

The death penalty in Iran, where Islamic Sharia law is practised, can be imposed on those convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape, armed robbery, blasphemy and apostasy (the abandonment of one's religion).

Most executions are carried out behind prison walls by hanging although occasionally criminals are hung from cranes in public squares.