Iranian officials executed 27-year-old Greco-Roman wrestling champion Navid Afkari on Saturday despite pleas from UFC president Dana White and U.S. President Donald Trump to spare his life.
The Iranian government claims that Afkari murdered a security guard during protests in 2018. Afkari, his attorneys, and family say that he was peacefully protesting and that he confessed to the murder only under extreme torture by authorities.
Afkari’s brothers, Vahid and Habib, were sentenced to 54 and 27 years in prison, as well as 74 lashes, in the same case, according to human rights activists in Iran in a BBC report of the case.
White, in hearing of the sentence, reached out to President Trump, who is a personal friend of his, for help.
Those pleas, as well as those of Afkari’s family and thousands of supporters worldwide, fell on deaf ears, as the Iranian government carried out Afkari’s execution on Saturday, according to the BBC.❐
