An Iranian teenager charged with murder was pardoned seconds before he was due to be hanged yesterday.
Morteza Amini Moqaddam (17), was pardoned by the father of Hadi Mohebbi, the man he fatally stabbed on December 13th after a quarrel over smoking in public.
A crowd of 4,000, restrained by riot police, had gathered on Damavand Avenue in Tehran where Moqaddam was to be hanged from a crane fixed on a truck, just feet away from where Mohebbi was stabbed.
Moqaddam's family had been standing in front of the shop since before dawn, appealing for forgiveness. Under Islamic law, the closest relatives of the victim can demand the death sentence or pardon the accused.
An official brought Moqaddam forward, read out the death sentence and fixed the thick rope around his neck. Then Mohebbi's father, Ali, apparently influenced by Moqaddam's family and the crowd, spoke to officials, saying he had forgiven Moqaddam.
Moqaddam was immediately returned to prison in the ambulance that had been waiting to take his body to the morgue. A new sentence will be decided later this month.