Wrestler, part of 2018 protests and accused of murder, executed

Iran said Saturday that it had executed a 27-year-old wrestler accused of murder after he took part in anti-government protests two years ago, a case that set off a campaign by international sports groups to demand clemency for the athlete.

The wrestler, Navid Afkari, was executed Saturday morning at a prison in the southern city of Shiraz, his lawyers confirmed. Afkari was accused of fatally stabbing a water-utility worker amid unrest in Shiraz, a center of the anti-government protests that swept the country in 2018.

The charges against him had been met with widespread skepticism in Iran and abroad, with many government critics saying he was being used as an example to silence dissent. In an audiotape smuggled from prison, Afkari said he had been tortured until he falsely confessed to the crime.

Afkari’s lawyers said Saturday that Iranian officials had carried out the execution without giving their client a final visit with his family, which they said was dictated by law.

“How much of a rush were you in to carry out the sentence that you denied Navid one last meeting?” one of the lawyers, Hossein Younesi, posted on Twitter.

The International Olympic Committee said it was shocked and saddened by the execution.

“It is deeply upsetting that the pleas of athletes from around the world and all the behind-the-scenes work of the IOC, together with the NOC of Iran, United World Wrestling and the National Iranian Wrestling Federation did not achieve our goal,” the committee said in a statement.