“Zeynab Sekanvand Lakran, a young female prisoner who has been accused of murder when she was 17, has been kept in the women’s ward of Orumiyeh Central prison waiting to be executed,” a reliable source told Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
The source said that “Zeynab Sekanvand Larkan, name of her father Mohammad, born on 22 June 1994, National Insurance Number 282-016792-6, she was born in one of shoot villages near the city of Makoo. She got married in March 2010 when she was only 15 and was arrested in March 2012 on charges of murdering her husband when she was 17.”
One of Zeynab’s former inmates told KHRN that ” Zeynab had had a difficult and an unhappy childhood because of her parents’ poverty and very religious and strict upbringing. Zeynab felt so desperate that she decided to runaway with a man she had shortly met. They came back to Zeynab’s parents after a while and asked their permission to get married. Zeynab’s parents agreed to their marriage and the groom paid them an amount of money in return. That is how Zeynab officially got married.”
The former prisoner said: “Zeynab’s marriage to her late husband was out of desperation and during her two years of marriage she was repeatedly beaten by her husband. In March 2012, Zeynab went to a police station, and confessed to the killing of her husband, saying she killed him after he had beaten her. After police investigations, one of the victim’s relatives was also arrested but he/she was later released due to lack of evidence.”
The former inmate said that “Zeynab was kept in Xoy prison until 2014, but when she was sentenced to Qisas (Islamic law death penalty), she was transferred to women’s ward of Orumiyeh Central where she is now being jailed. In the first few years of her imprisonment, Zeynab had accepted responsibility for murdering her husband, and because she had no one to help her with her case, the court had appointed a public defender for her, but since last year Zeynab has started denying murder, and has told her inmates that her initial confessions were false and she had confessed to murder to cover for somebody else. She says that she never thought that the situation would get so severe and out of her hand.
The Supreme Court upheld her death penalty after her appeal and because the victim’s family have not forgiven Zeynab, she may be executed at any moment a the Orumiyeh Prison for Qisas.”
The KHRN source added that “Zeynab has spent more than four years in prison and during this time her mental and emotional state has deteriorated significantly.
Her inmates are concerned for her. Zeynab was so lonely and desperate that she
married a prisoner last year. She is four months pregnant and the only thing
that gives her a little hope is the fact that she will not be executed during
her pregnancy.”
