TEHRAN, October 25 -- Reyhaneh Jabbari to be hanged early on Saturday for killing a man she says tried to abuse her, rights group reports. Amnesty International is calling on Iran to suspend the imminent hanging of a 26-year-old woman convicted for killing a man whom she said tried to sexually abuse her. Reyhaneh Jabbari, who was scheduled to be executed at dawn on Saturday, was arrested in 2007 for the murder of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former employee of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence. She was sentenced to death by a criminal court in Tehran in 2009 in what Amnesty said was a "deeply flawed investigation and trial". Her execution was due to be carried out on 30 September but was postponed for 10 days. "Time is running out for Reyhaneh Jabbari, the authorities must act now to stop her execution," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa Programme. "Applying such a punishment in any circumstances is an affront to justice, but doing so after a flawed trial that leaves huge questions hanging over the case only makes it more tragic," Sahraoui added in a statement on Friday. Jabbari apparently admitted to stabbing Sarbandi in the back. She said he had tried to sexually assault her. However, she said that another man who was also in the house at the time killed him. Her claims do not appear to have ever been properly investigated, Amnesty said. Calls for retrial Iran's judicial authorities were reported to have pressured Jabbari to replace her lawyer, Mohammad Ali Jedari Foroughi, for a more inexperienced one, in an apparent attempt to prevent an investigation of her claims, Amnesty reported. Jabbari's execution has been deferred a number of times, including in the last month. "Instead of repeatedly rescheduling Reyhaneh Jabbari’s execution date, the Iranian judiciary should order a re-trial that complies with international standards for fair trial without recourse to the death penalty," Sahraoui said. Reyhaneh's mother told Amnesty International that she met her daughter for one hour today, but prison officials refused to give the family any details of Reyhaneh’s imminent transfer to a place of execution.
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