Iran secretly executes two Afghan nationals and another prisoner at Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad

Hengaw – Friday, September 4, 2026

Iranian authorities have executed three prisoners, Omid Rakhshani, Ansar Nami and Nazif Rasoulkhandeh, at Mashhad Central Prison (Vakilabad Prison). The three had been sentenced to death in separate murder cases. The executions of the two Afghan nationals were carried out without prior notification to their families.

According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Ansar Nami, 52, and Nazif Rasoulkhandeh, 46, both Afghan nationals, were executed at Mashhad Central Prison at dawn on September 2, 2026, without being granted a final family visit.

The two men had been arrested approximately two years earlier in the same case in connection with the killing of two people at an unfinished building and were subsequently sentenced to death under Iran’s qisas (retributive justice) laws.

Omid Rakhshani, a 22-year-old man from Mashhad, was executed at the same prison on the same day. He had previously been arrested on a murder charge and subsequently sentenced to death under qisas laws.

Iranian state media and judicial authorities had not publicly announced any of the three executions.