Eleventh-hour reprieve for Iranian man sentenced to have acid injected into his eyes by woman he blinded

Update I, 10:00am ET:

Authorities have postponed a Tehran court’s decision to inject acid into the eyes of a man who threw acid in his ex-lover’s face, blinding her.

The sentence was permitted under Iran’s Islamic law, imposed since the 1979 Islamic revolution – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, in cases in which great bodily harm was caused by the defendant.

Majid Movahedi, 27, was sentenced to be blinded with acid as he lies in a hospital under anesthetic yesterday at mid noon — 20 drops in each eye by a medical professional. But, according to an unnamed official, the punishment was postponed.

According to London’s Daily Mail, Movahedi threw sulphuric acid in the face of 32 year-old Ameneh Bahrami at a bus-stop in 2004 after she scorned his requests to marry him.

The sulphuric acid literally melted away her face and left her blind and disfigured. She underwent 19 operations, including skin grafts to her face. But her vision could not be saved.

Movahedi fled the scene after the attack but he was later apprehended and sent to prison.

The tabloid reports that Movahedi stalked Bahrami for months after she broke up with him. The courts awarded her £19,000 ($30,000 USD) for her pain and suffering but Bahrami didn’t want the money — she wanted him to feel the same pain and suffering as she did.

Bahrami has received numerous death threats, and the police warned her not to go outside alone.

“His mother phoned my parents. She asked for mercy,” said Bahrami in an interview.

“She said that Majid would always work for me if he could keep his eyes. But now it’s too late,” she said.

Bahrami and her lawyer have now said they were not aware that the punishment had been postponed yesterday.

Amnesty International has urged Iran not to carry out the sentence, saying: ‘the Iranian authorities have a responsibility under international law to ensure it does not go ahead’.

‘Regardless of how horrific the crime suffered by Ameneh Bahrami, being blinded with acid is a cruel and inhuman punishment amounting to torture,’ said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director for Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.