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Father who beheaded 13-year-old daughter in 'honor killing' gets just 9 years despite mother seeking death

While the mother of Romina Ashrafi called for the death penalty, a court ruled he would have to spend less than a decade behind bars

An Iranian man who hit national and international headlines after he beheaded his daughter in her sleep in an "honor killing" has been sentenced to less than a decade in prison, despite the girl's mother asking that he be given the death penalty. Thirteen-year-old Romina Ashrafi had been decapitated with a sickle in her family home in Hovigh, Talesh County, 198 miles north-west of Tehran, on May 21, 2020, after she reportedly planned to elope with a 35-year-old man, Bahman Khavari.

While the legal age for marriage in 13 in Iran, she had run away from home after her father had been outraged that she wanted to get married to an older man. She and Khavari were eventually tracked down by authorities, and Romina was sent back home despite pleas that her life would be in danger.

Romina's father, who remains unidentified, then killed his daughter as she was sleeping before turning himself in with the authorities and confessing to the crime. Reports claimed he was holding the bloodied sickle he used to behead his daughter at the time. Following the killing, Masoumeh Ebtekar, the vice for Women's Affairs, had announced a "special order" to investigate the homicide but this past week, an Iranian court sentenced the father to nine years behind bars in a decision that was bemoaned by Romina's mother. "Despite the judicial authorities' insistence on a 'special handling' of the case, the verdict has terrified me and my family. I don't want my husband to return to our village ever again," Rana Dashti, the mother, told ILNA news agency before calling for the verdict to be reviewed and changed to an "execution."

She said she had lived with the father for 15 years and that the verdict meant she would have to fear for the life of the rest of the family. Dashti calling for her father's execution is not without precedence in Iran, a country where an "eye for an eye" retributive justice is common. Sharia law in the country allows immediate family members, or "blood owners," to demand execution for the murder of a relative, but because Romina's father was her "guardian," it made him exempt from "qisas" or "retaliation in kind."

It remains to be seen how the recent verdict will be met by human rights activists and Iranian political figures considering the uproar Romina's death had caused in Iran at the time had led the country's President Hassan Rouhani to call for the speedy passing of several anti-violence bills. 

Prominent Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad had also condemned the killing and highlighted how, sadly, it was not uncommon by pointing to the beheading of Atefeh Navidi. "This is not the first time such a tragic incident occurs," he had tweeted. "Years ago, Atefeh Navidi, a young girl from Iran, had her head chopped off by her father as well because she had a boyfriend. As long as the current laws discriminating against girls and empowering abusive parents exist, unfortunately the cycle of violence will continue. Iran will see more Ruminas and Atefehs tragically killed by their fathers. This cycle of violence needs to end."