JOIN US“With the request of Ameneh Bahrami, the acid attack victim, Majid (Movahedi) who was sentenced for ‘qesas’ (‘eye for an eye’-style justice) was pardoned at the last minute” after she decided to forgo her right, it said.
Movahedi was sentenced in February 2009 to be blinded in both eyes after being convicted of hurling acid in the face of university classmate Bahrami when she repeatedly spurned his offer of marriage.
The court-ordered blinding of Movahedi was postponed at the 11th hour in mid-May, with no official reason given. Bahrami said she pardoned her attacker because “God talks about ‘qesas’ in the Koran but he also recommends pardon since pardon is greater than ‘qesas’.” “I struggled for seven years for this verdict to prove to people that the person who hurls acid should be punished through ‘qesas,’ but today I pardoned him because it was my right.
“I did it for my country, since all other countries were looking to see what we would do,” she added.
Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi hailed Bahrami’s decision, but also said that judiciary would have carried out the blinding sentence. “Today in hospital the blinding of Majid Movahedi was to have been carried out in the presence of an eye specialist and judiciary representative, when Ameneh pardoned him,” he was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
“However she demanded blood money for her injuries,” Jafari Dolatabadi said, referring to compensation allocated to the victims of violent crimes when they suffer serious injuries, but he did not elaborate.