Iran court quashes Amini protests death sentence

Iran's Supreme Court has quashed a death sentence handed down to a 23-year-old man convicted of killing a policeman during nationwide protests last year, local media reported Wednesday.

Iran issued a slew of death sentences during its crackdown on the protests sparked by the September death of Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini while in morality police custody.

The Islamic republic has carried out seven of the executions, triggering international condemnation and Western sanctions.

Mohammad Ghobadlou was sentenced to death on the charge of "corruption on Earth" in October after a court found him guilty of "attacking police officers, one of them fatally", in a car-ramming during a protest.

"The Supreme Court quashed the death sentence... against Ghobadlou and referred his case to a new jurisdiction to deal with issues relating to his mental health," Iran's Mehr news agency reported, citing his defence team.

Ghobadlou's family had appealed for clemency from the court on the grounds that he suffered from bipolar disorder.

Dozens of police officers were among the hundreds of people killed during the Amini protests, which Tehran labelled "riots" fomented by foreign governments.

Authorities made thousands of arrests among protesters and their supporters.

Iran executes more people a year than any other nation except China, according to human rights groups including Amnesty International.

The authorities last year carried out the executions of four protesters, prompting international condemnation.

Since the start of the year, Iran has witnessed a surge in executions on various charges to campaigners' alarm.

The authorities hanged 75 percent more people in 2022 than the previous year, the Norway-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty said in a joint report in April.

At least 582 people were executed in Iran last year, the highest number of executions in the country since 2015 and well above the 333 recorded in 2021, the two groups said.