Zahra Bahrami

Who is Zahra Bahrami?

Zahra Bahrami, also spelled Sahra Baahrami, was a dual Dutch and Iranian citizen who was executed in Iran, after being convicted by the Islamic Revolutionary Court of drug trafficking.

She was initially arrested in December 2009 for participating in the Ashura protests and charged with national security offenses and being a member of Kingdom Assembly of Iran. But according to the Iranian Judicatory, a subsequent search of her house uncovered 450 grams of cocaine, 420 grams of opium, and several forged passports. Subsequently, the Tehran prosecutors charged her with drug trafficking and being a member of an international drug-trafficking network, for which she was convicted. Bahrami also had a prior criminal record in the Netherlands. She had spent three years in jail in the Netherlands after trafficking 16 kilograms of cocaine after a flight from the Caribbean in 2003, and for forging passports in 2007.

In protest of her execution, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign affairs temporarily froze diplomatic contacts with Iran and resumed on February 18, 2011.