Iranian champion wrestler Navid Afkari executed this morning despite global outcry

Iran has executed a champion wrestler convicted of murdering a security guard during anti-regime protests in 2018, state media said on Saturday, despite an international campaign to spare his life.

Navid Afkari, 27, was executed “this morning after legal procedures were carried out at the insistence of the parents and the family of the victim”, the Islamic Republic News Agency quoted the head of the justice department in the southern Fars province as saying. 

His case had created a global outcry, including from the US president, Donald Trump, and from the World Players Association (WPA), a major athletes’ union representing 85,000 people, which had called for Iran’s expulsion from world sport if the execution went ahead. 

The World Players Association said he had been "unjustly targeted" for taking part in the protests, and called for Iran's expulsion from world sport if it went ahead with the execution. 

US President Donald Trump also appealed for mercy, saying the wrestler's "sole act was an anti-government demonstration on the streets". The International Olympic Committee (IOC) called his execution "very sad news" and said their thoughts were with his family and friends. 

"It is deeply upsetting that the pleas of athletes from around the world and all the behind-the-scenes work of the IOC... did not achieve our goal," their statement said. Afkari was executed by hanging in the southern city of Shiraz, state media report. 

His brothers Vahid and Habib were sentenced to 54 and 27 years in prison in the same case, according to human rights activists in Iran.