Mohammed Bijeh


Mohammed Bijeh was an Iranian serial killer. He confessed in court to raping and killing 16 young boys between March and September 2004, and was sentenced to 100 lashes followed by execution. All the boys were between 8 and 15 years old. Additionally, he killed two adults. The murder of children around Tehran was recognized as the largest criminal case in Iran for the last 71 years, and has strongly influenced public opinion in the country.

Biography

Muhammad Basjee, known as Bijeh, was born into a crowded family. He had six brothers and six half brothers. When he was four years old, his mother died of cancer. His father was a merchant who married immediately after the death of Bijeh’s mother. Bijeh never remembered his mother, but said that his father was a barbaric person who beat him and chained his legs during childhood.
His father forced him to abandon school and work. He was 11 when he came to Khatunabad with his family, where he began working at a furnace. Around this time, he was raped multiple times.

Motivation

He admitted that he had been raped and wanted to take revenge on the community, and that he suffered from his mother's early death and the lack of affection suffered in childhood. Bijeh commented on his main motive for the murders: "I suffered cruely from childhood, and when I compared my life with others, I had to commit such acts."

Arrest

He said about his death sentence: "I do not deserve to be sentenced to death." He was arrested on September 14, 2004 and tried in Branch 74 of the Tehran Penal Code under the presiding Judge Mansour Yavarzadeh Yeganeh and his four other lawyers, and by a majority of its judges and on November 27 the same year, he was sentenced to be executed. Bijeh said that if he was not arrested, he would kill 100 children. Police arrested 16 of their offices in the handling of this case, and the judiciary also announce that Pakdasht prosecutors, as well as two investigators and a prosecutor's office, had filed a "brief" case.

Execution

On March 16, 2005, in Pakdasht, Iran, the town near the desert area where the killings occurred, in front of a crowd of about 5,000, Bijeh's shirt was removed and he was handcuffed to an iron post, where he received his lashings from different judicial officials. He fell to the ground more than once during the punishment but did not cry out. A relative of one of the victims managed to get past security and stab Bijeh. The mother of one of the victims put a blue nylon rope around his neck, and he was hoisted about 10 meters in the air by a crane until he died.