VOICE OF AMERICA
Trump Urges Iran Not to Execute Wrestler for 2018 Murder Confession Apparently Made Under Torture
by Michael Lipin, Ramin Haghjoo
September 3, 2020

U.S. President Donald Trump has urged Iran not to execute a wrestler sentenced to death for murder in connection with an anti-government protest in 2018, after Iran’s top court upheld the wrestler’s sentence despite him retracting a confession that he said was made under torture…[Navid] Afkari is a 27-year-old Iranian freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestler from the south-central city of Shiraz who has won medals in domestic and international competitions. A criminal court in Fars province, of which Shiraz is the capital, had handed Afkari the death penalty for murder in the killing of a local security guard of a government water facility…READ MORE