Sajjad Heydari butchered wife Mona Heydari, 17, after her father returned her to the abusive husband – and he was handed just seven years in prison due to the family’s forgiveness
A barbaric man who decapitated his wife and paraded her head around like a trophy has been forgiven by the woman’s parents – sparking a shorter prison sentence.
Mona Heydari, 17, was dragged from a car outside her family home and was beheaded by Sajjad Heydari and his brother Heydar in Ahvaz, the capital of the southwestern Khuzestan Province of Iran. But her husband has been handed a lenient punishment – despite chilling footage showing him displaying the teenager’s head.
Mona, who had been wed when she was merely 12, initially fled from her abusive husband and escaped to Turkey with another man, the court heard. Her father eventually located her and convinced her to come back to Iran – but after Heydari reportedly rejected his wife’s pleas for a divorce, a court heard.
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Her father allegedly used Interpol to trace his daughter and returned her to her violent husband, where her spouse – who is also her cousin – murdered her, claiming she had brought him dishonour. But he avoided a harsher sentence after her parents reportedly chose not to invoke Iran’s Islamic law of retribution.
Harrowing video footage emerged showing the killer husband clutching his wife’s head in one hand and a large knife in the other after murdering her. Court spokesperson Massud Setayeshi announced that Heydari was handed a seven-and-a-half year sentence for murder, with an additional eight months for intentional assault.
His brother, who disposed of his sister-in-law’s decapitated body, received a 45-month prison sentence for complicity in intentional homicide. The court heard how the victim’s father defended marrying her off at 12 to a relative, arguing that the violence she experienced in the relationship was normal. Mona was only 14 when she gave birth to their son.
Her father lauded the husband they chose for her as a good spouse, emphasising his work ethic and provision of the ‘best life’ for his daughter. The man, known only as Javid, told the court: “She was not forced to marry, and in fact, the husband provided her with the very best of lives.
“It’s true, there was fighting between them, and sometimes there was violence, and she would return home, but she only stayed for two or three days, and then he would pick her up, and life would return to normal. These fights between husband and wife are completely normal, and I don’t think there was a problem as she did not ask for a divorce.”
Mona’s father admitted, in retrospect, she may have been too young for marriage, but insisted: “We got a certificate of confirmation that she was physically old enough to marry, and there was no physical problem in the relationship.” The family claimed the husband felt humiliated and insulted after his wife ran away to Turkey with another man.
The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) reported the victim was forced to marry her cousin at the age of 12. They also disclosed the young girl allegedly suffered domestic abuse and whenever she expressed a wish to divorce her husband, her family pressured her to return home for the sake of their child, who was born when she was just 14.
Local media reported the husband’s brother wrapped the girl’s body in a blanket and disposed of it, whilst the husband paraded his wife’s head. In the video, the suspect is seen smiling widely as he holds the teenager’s head, walking past local people. Meanwhile, the state-run news site Rokna was reportedly closed down for publishing the story and the footage at the time of the incident.
The NCRI’s Women’s Committee said: “Not a week goes by without some form of honour killing making headlines. The clerical regime’s failure to criminalise these murders has led to a catastrophic rise in honour killings. In a report published in 2019, the state-run Sharq daily newspaper wrote that an annual average of 375 to 450 honour killings are recorded in Iran. The murders are more prevalent [the areas of] in Khuzestan, Kurdistan, Ilam, and Sistan and Baluchestan.