Iran ends death penalty for some drug crimes

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has lifted the death penalty for certain nonviolent drug offenses, relaxing some of the world’s harshest laws on drug crimes and potentially sparing the lives of thousands of death row inmates.

An amended narcotics law directs judges to suspend executions for 5,000 people convicted of drug-related offenses and review their cases, Mizan news agency, the mouthpiece of Iran’s judiciary, reported Wednesday.

Most of the 5,000 convicts would have their punishments “converted to life sentences,” Mohammad Ali Esfanani, assistant judge of the Iranian Supreme Court, told state media.

A spokesman for the judiciary committee of Iran’s Parliament, Hasan Nourouzi, told the Jame-Jam daily newspaper that violent drug offenders — including those who had committed murder in the course of drug crimes — would still be subject to the death penalty if convicted.

But the moratorium on executions for those found guilty of nonviolent crimes — such as drug smuggling — is a victory for reformists and human rights advocates who fought for years to change Iran’s draconian drug laws. Proponents of the changes say that 90 percent of those imprisoned on drug convictions are first-time offenders younger than 30 years old.

The amended law had been in the works for more than two years, ever since a majority of Iran’s 290 lawmakers said they endorsed a moratorium. After parliament approved the bill, it won approval from Iran’s all-powerful Guardian Council, a conservative body made up of Islamic jurists and theologians.

Hard-liners had long opposed the changes, but the influence of moderates and reformists in parliament, and a rising backlash against executions, has contributed to a softening stance.

Lawmakers have raised the limits on the amounts of drugs one can possess before it becomes a capital offense. An earlier law provided for the death penalty if someone was caught with an ounce of cocaine; the new limit is 4.4 pounds.

Iran is in the grip of a terrible drug abuse problem, mainly driven by easy access to cheap and plentiful narcotics, especially opium, coming over the border from Afghanistan.