The judicial authorities suggested they might not rehang a convicted drug felon who survived the first attempt to hang him and who has been convalescing in a hospital pending a second execution attempt. The semiofficial ISNA news agency quoted the justice minister, Mostafa Pur-Mohammadi, as saying, “I do not think there is any need for a rehanging of the convict,†although he said he would defer to the courts. The condemned man, identified only as Alireza M., 37, a father of two, was left for dead in the morgue this month after he had swung in a prison gallows for 12 minutes. His survival attracted worldwide attention and focused scrutiny on Iran’s heavy use of the death penalty.
