Iran school official jailed over sexual abuse of boys

A supervisor at a Tehran boys' high school has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and 80 lashes for sexual abuse of minors, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency said Sunday.

Reports of assaults against several dozen pupils at a private school in the west of the capital sparked outrage in the Iranian press when they emerged in late May.

The scandal even prompted the intervention of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who demanded the judiciary take the necessary measures to punish the culprit.

On Saturday a court found the school supervisor guilty of "sexual assault against minors", "incitement to debauchery" and "undermining decency", ISNA said.

Parents of some minors have said that the supervisor incited their children to carry out sexual acts after showing them pornographic videos on his mobile phone, local media reported.

But the court dismissed accusations of rape after submitting the minors to medical tests, it added.

Rape carries the death penalty in Iran.

In January, Iran carried out the death penalty on a man convicted of raping and killing a six-year-old child when he himself was a minor, in a case that shook the nation.

Setayesh Ghoreyshi was kidnapped in the town of Varamin, south of Tehran in April 2016 and was murdered by Amirhossein Pourjafar.

Pourjafar was 17-years-old at the time.

Gholamhossein Esmaili, the judiciary chief for Tehran said, "the family of the victim insisted on applying the penalty which took place this morning".

Leading human rights group Amnesty International had previously condemned the courts decision and urged Iran to reconsider.

"There is no question that this was a horrific crime and the perpetrator should be held accountable. Amnesty International supports the demands for justice voiced by Setayesh's bereaved family and the wider Afghan community in Iran, but executing a 17-year-old boy is not justice," said Magdalena Mughrabi, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Amnesty International.

Eighty-five juvenile offenders were executed in Iran between 2005 and 2017. Amnesty International has identified 92 individuals currently on death row for crimes committed while they were children.

Iran claims it does not execute minors, however, minors can be sentenced to death, with the executions carried out when the convict reaches the legal age of 18.