Background
The case of Shahla Jahed gripped Tehran.
The tabloids sold by street children at traffic lights across the city made a great deal out of the case under banner headlines such as:
“Shahla: I am Laleh’s murderer”
“Shahla: I’m no psycho”
“My mistress murdered my wife”.
Although not pretty enough to be a model, Shahla was a good-looking 32-year-old, which, combined with the case’s notoriety, her temporary husband’s sporting fame, and her feisty personality, fascinated the public.
Her case made international news and was widely reported across the Middle East and worldwide, reflecting the intense legal scrutiny examined in our broader survey of capital punishment in the British Commonwealth and the end of capital punishment in Europe.
Khadijeh Jahed was born on the 10th of May 1969, and was always known as Shahla.
She worked as a nurse and was an avid football fan.
It would seem that she became infatuated at the age of 13 with Nasser Mohammadkhani, who was a top Iranian national football player in the 1980s and who by 1998 was the highly successful coach of Tehran’s Persepolis football club.
Meeting one of his friends in the street, Shahla asked the acquaintance to pass on her telephone number to Nasser.
The friend forgot to pass on the number, and it was not until some months later—when his wife discovered the scrap of paper in his jacket pocket—that he finally did so.
According to Shahla’s testimony at trial, Nasser telephoned her the very evening on which he finally received the message.
They arranged to meet the following day, the 17th of October 1998.
Shahla maintained a comfortable apartment in northern Tehran, which soon became their private residence.
The couple entered into a temporary marriage (sigheh in Farsi), an institution legally recognised under Iranian civil and religious law.
This legal arrangement was critical because adultery constitutes a capital crime under Islamic Sharia law, punishable by stoning to death.
The tradition of temporary marriage dates back to the origins of Islam and allows individuals to engage in sanctioned sexual relations outside permanent marriage while ensuring that any resulting offspring are legally recognized and financially provided for.
It is permitted in Shia Islam, though rejected by Sunni jurisprudence.
The marriage contract must be formally witnessed and solemnized by an Islamic clergyman.
Nasser was already permanently married to Laleh Saharkhizan, with whom he had two sons.
It appears he enjoyed both domestic relationships simultaneously.
The Murder of Laleh Saharkhizan
On the 8th of October 2002, Laleh Saharkhizan was discovered stabbed to death inside her Tehran home by her two returning school-age sons.
Her husband was in Germany at the time on a training tour with his football squad.
Investigating detectives uncovered the intimate relationship between Shahla and Nasser, leading police to treat Shahla as the prime suspect in the murder.
Shahla was placed under arrest in November 2003 and charged with premeditated murder after confessing in police custody and performing a detailed video-recorded reenactment of the crime.
Nasser was initially suspected of complicity in the homicide and detained for several months before being cleared of involvement in the murder.
However, he received a judicial sentence of 74 lashes for smoking opium, which Shahla had regularly purchased for him, recording the transactions in her diary under the code phrase “bags of rice”.
The Trial at the Tehran Criminal Court (2004)
Shahla’s trial opened on the 7th of June 2004 in Tehran, with the open public hearings concluding on the 9th of June.
She stood indicted for the murder of Laleh Saharkhizan, grand theft from Laleh’s home, and illicitly procuring opium for Nasser.
In open court, she vehemently denied murdering Laleh, insisting that her earlier police confessions had been extracted through physical torture and psychological coercion, though she admitted to obtaining narcotics for Nasser.
In Iran, murder cases are adjudicated under Islamic Sharia law, which places the victim’s family (awliya al-dam) in the primary decision-making role, granting them the legal right to demand Qisas (retribution in kind) or accept Diya (blood money).
The victim’s next of kin must present a unanimous formal demand to the court for capital punishment to be enforced.
If even a single heir agrees to accept blood money or grant a pardon, the death penalty cannot be imposed.
Negotiations to accept financial compensation are legally permitted and frequently succeed where the deceased was the sole household earner.
Where the victim’s heirs reject blood money and demand retribution, they are legally required to attend the hanging, retaining the statutory right to pardon the condemned prisoner up to the final second before the drop falls.
At the opening of the trial, Laleh’s mother addressed the court, demanding:
“an eye for an eye”
and:
“legal retribution”.
Nasser Mohammadkhani likewise requested the bench to enforce Qisas.
Courtroom Exchanges and Defiant Testimony
When called to the witness stand, Shahla mounted a spirited defence and frequently engaged in sharp verbal exchanges with the presiding judge.
She told the court that she and Nasser had maintained an affair for four years, but stressed that he had recited the sacred religious verses for temporary marriage.
She disclosed that she had become pregnant by Nasser and admitted to the court that she had terminated the pregnancy by undergoing an illegal abortion.
Nasser attended every session of the trial, and many of Shahla’s comments appeared directed toward him rather than the bench.
She openly reiterated her deep love for him.
When questioned about the extraordinary number of telephone calls she placed to him, she informed the court:
“I’d get up in the middle of the night and miss Nasser. Even if he went to the toilet I missed him.”
Laleh’s mother and sister testified that they had received disturbing nocturnal telephone calls from an unidentified woman who told them that Laleh did not deserve her comfortable life with Nasser.
The official videotape showing the police reenactment of the crime—with an undercover police officer playing the role of the victim—was projected in the courtroom.
In the recording, Shahla demonstrated how she stabbed Laleh.
The judge noted the intricate detail contained in the reenactment.
On the recording, she described asking Laleh for forgiveness before striking her with the knife again.
This footage proved overwhelming for Laleh’s mother, who wept and shouted in court:
“Oh God, God damn you! May God’s rage fall upon you. She killed my girl.”
Shahla insisted to the bench that both she and Laleh were victims of their love for Nasser.
She testified that she had indeed visited Laleh’s home after the murder had already occurred, weeping as she recalled discovering the corpse.
She stated that she placed a cover over the body out of respect, but maintained she was not the killer, arguing that this post-mortem visit explained any physical or fingerprint evidence recovered by police technicians.
Following a contentious exchange with the presiding judge, a smiling Shahla declared:
“If you want to kill me go ahead. It looks like you’re sitting here with a sword as if we’re in a duel. Excuse me for my boldness because I like you. I confess I really do.”
The judge appeared nonplussed by her demeanor. Later in the proceedings, she warned him:
“In your sleep you don’t want to see Shahla’s wandering soul.”
On the 17th of June 2004, Shahla Jahed was brought back to court and formally sentenced to death by hanging.
Appeals, Stays, and Re-Investigation (2005–2010)
A five-judge panel of the Supreme Court of Iran confirmed the death sentence on the 26th of October 2005, following an earlier review by a smaller appellate panel on the 2nd of October.
Shahla’s defence counsel, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, petitioned the Head of the Judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, requesting an extraordinary review on the grounds that the initial investigation was flawed.
In November 2005, Ayatollah Shahroudi ordered a stay of execution so the evidence could be re-examined.
On the 13th of February 2008, Shahroudi formally overturned the conviction, citing procedural irregularities and directing that a fresh investigation be conducted.
The newspaper Etemad quoted Laleh’s sister reiterating the family’s demand for execution:
“Laleh was a mother of two who was murdered in all innocence. Her murderer must be punished.”
One critical forensic finding that was never resolved was the post-mortem discovery of semen inside Laleh’s body.
It was never established whether this was Nasser’s prior to his departure for Germany, whether Laleh had an undisclosed relationship, or whether she had been sexually assaulted and murdered by an unknown male intruder.
The judicial panels concluded that there was no credible evidence of an intruder.
In May 2009, the conviction and capital sentence were reinstated.
On the 13th of September 2010, Shahla addressed a personal letter to Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, the new Head of the Judiciary, requesting a final resolution to her prolonged detention.
His response arrived on the 7th of November 2010, when the execution warrant was signed and transmitted to Evin Prison.
Execution at Evin Prison (01/12/2010)
After spending 3,063 days on and off death row in Tehran’s Evin Prison, Shahla Jahed was hanged in the prison courtyard at 5:00 a.m. (prior to the morning call to prayer) on Wednesday, the 1st of December 2010.
Judicial officials spent nearly an hour immediately prior to the execution attempting to persuade Laleh’s family to accept blood money and grant a pardon, but they refused.
In accordance with Iranian legal procedure, Laleh’s immediate family and Nasser Mohammadkhani were present inside the execution enclosure, along with Shahla’s defence lawyer, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, and Judge Esmatollah Jaberi from the Tehran Criminal Court’s Implementation Unit.
Her own relatives and friends were barred from the execution courtyard, gathering instead outside the main prison gates.
In an interview granted shortly before the hanging, Nasser stated his support for the execution:
“Whatever my children and Laleh’s mother say is OK with me. The killer of my wife should get the appropriate punishment.”
At the scaffold, Shahla prayed quietly before breaking down and weeping uncontrollably as custodial warders completed the final preparations, pleading for her life to be spared.
She made no formal final statement.
Witness reports indicated that one of Laleh’s sons or her brother kicked or pulled the wooden bench from beneath her feet, carrying out the physical act of hanging.
The Execution Procedure
Under Iranian penal practice for female executions, the condemned woman is dressed in a black chador, with her hands cuffed behind her back and her legs shackled.
She is escorted into the courtyard and made to step onto a raised wooden bench or stool beneath the tubular steel beam of the gallows.
Blindfolds are applied, though white hoods are not used.
A female prison officer places a coiled noose of nylon rope around the prisoner’s neck.
Because the drop distance is negligible, death does not occur via cervical dislocation as seen in British long drop procedures under the evolution of the long drop in the 20th century.
Instead, the execution operates via the short drop method, with death resulting from strangulation, carotid artery occlusion, and vagal cardiac reflex over several minutes, governed by standard statutory execution methods.
Shahla’s execution was the 146th carried out in Iran in 2010 and the third execution of a female prisoner that year, leaving 31 women on death row in Evin Prison at the time.
Analytical Commentary
It remains impossible to establish with total certainty whether Shahla Jahed committed the murder alone.
While she possessed an obvious motive arising from her rivalry with Laleh, motive alone does not establish physical guilt beyond all doubt.
Her presence in the home was admitted, though she claimed Laleh had already been slain when she arrived.
The case rested heavily on her police confession, which she insisted had been coerced under torture.
This account was corroborated by journalist Fereshteh Ghazi, who shared a prison cell with Shahla for two weeks:
“Shahla told me she was beaten up for 11 months and she was tortured. But she didn’t confess until Nasser came to see her and allegedly asked her to take responsibility for the murder and she did so.”
According to Major Abharian, a senior police investigator on the case, Nasser was granted private access to Shahla at the police investigation bureau.
Although no official record of that discussion was preserved, it raised unresolved questions as to whether she confessed to protect Nasser’s public reputation.
Furthermore, unresolved physical evidence—including the semen recovered during the autopsy and allegations that the crime scene had been compromised—persisted throughout the appellate process.
Faced with execution by slow strangulation, it was natural that Shahla recanted her confession and proclaimed her innocence in an effort to save herself.
A feature-length documentary on the case, Red Card, directed by filmmaker Mahnaz Afzali, incorporated private video footage from the couple’s relationship alongside courtroom trial excerpts.
Afzali, who interviewed Shahla inside Evin Prison, observed:
“It is the cliché of a poor girl who falls in love with a celebrity.”
Red Card was banned from distribution in Iran.
In one home video filmed after Persepolis won the league championship in 2002, a smiling Nasser was welcomed into the apartment by Shahla:
“What does it feel like to be a champion?” she asked.
“I’m so happy dear,” he replied.
“I prayed for you – let me see you my love, my darling.”
Nasser’s public veneration of his wife after her murder stood in stark contrast to his treatment of her during her life.
He asserted:
“You cannot compare my wife to Shahla. She loved me with all her heart, but Shahla’s love was just lust.”
He claimed they shared a “telepathic understanding,” yet preserved audio recordings captured Laleh lamenting his chronic domestic absences.
Whatever the factual reality of the crime, Shahla was ultimately abandoned by Nasser, who held the statutory power under Qisas to spare her life on the scaffold, joining the annals of international capital cases involving domestic love triangles, such as Mariette Bosch in Botswana and Sandra Smith in South Africa.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Shahla Jahed?
Khadijeh “Shahla” Jahed was a 41-year-old Iranian nurse who was the temporary wife (sigheh) of Iranian football star and Persepolis coach Nasser Mohammadkhani. She was convicted of the 2002 murder of Mohammadkhani’s permanent wife, Laleh Saharkhizan, and hanged at Evin Prison in 2010.
What is a “temporary marriage” (sigheh) in Iran?
Under Iranian Shia Islamic law, sigheh (or mut’ah) is a legally binding contract allowing a man and an unmarried woman to enter into a temporary marriage for a predetermined duration and financial dowry. It provides legal legitimacy for intimate relationships and protects any resulting children, while preventing charges of capital adultery.
What is the principle of Qisas under Iranian law?
Qisas is the Islamic legal doctrine of equal retribution (“an eye for an eye”). Under Iranian murder statutes, the legal heirs of the deceased possess the sole authority to determine the offender’s punishment: they may demand execution, accept financial compensation (Diya or blood money), or grant an unconditional pardon.
Why was Shahla Jahed’s conviction initially overturned?
In February 2008, the Head of the Judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, overturned her conviction and ordered a reinvestigation after identifying significant procedural flaws in the police inquiry, including claims of coerced confession and unexamined crime-scene forensic evidence.
When and where was Shahla Jahed executed?
Shahla Jahed was hanged at 5:00 a.m. on December 1, 2010, in the courtyard of Evin Prison in Tehran, after the victim’s family refused to accept blood money and pulled the bench from beneath her feet.
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