TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran reportedly executed a Jewish citizen Monday who was found guilty of killing another man in 2022 following a personal dispute. this one a rare case of execution a member of a religious minority in a predominantly Muslim country.

Mizanonline.ir, a website affiliated with the Iranian judiciary, said 23-year-old Arvin Ghahremani was executed after the country’s Supreme Court upheld the death penalty imposed in the case early last year.

The report quoted Hamid Reza Karimi, the prosecutor of the western city of Kermanshah, as saying that the court and the prisoner’s lawyers and relatives had failed to persuade the victim’s family to refrain from retaliation, an act that carries similar punishment under Islamic criminal law. , or “a tooth for an eye” – and effectively forgive his murderer.

The victim’s name was not stated.

According to the report, Ghahramani attacked the victim in front of a gym in Kermanshah in 2022 and stabbed the man several times after a dispute over money he lent the victim.

Jewish citizens are a small minority in the country of 85 million people. In 1999, Iran arrested 13 Jewish citizens on charges of spying for Israel and sentenced many to up to four years in prison.

Many Jews fled the country after this incident. 1979 Islamic Revolution and current estimates indicate that approximately 20,000 Jews remain in Iran. Shia Muslims make up the majority of Iran’s population, and the institution is run by hardline clerics who preach a strict version of Islam.