Shocking: Iranians witness the public execution of Alireza Mafiha and Mohammad Ali Sarvari in Tehran. The two men posted a video on YouTube in December showing them robbing and assaulting a man with a machete

Alireza Mafiha (second left) leans his head on the shoulder of a security officer moments before he was executed alongside Mohammad Ali Sarvari (second right)

Execution: Masked executioners place the noose around Mohammad Ali Sarvari's neck (left). Seconds later both he was dead along with accomplice Alireza Mafiha (right) in a very public display by Iran's hardline government

Amid the howls of grief and rage, a judge recounted their crime and delivered the verdict, that they would be hanged for ‘waging war against God.’



Sarvari seemed stoical. But the desperate Mafiha broke down and laid his head on the shoulder of a balaclava-clad Iranian police officer who put an arm around his back.

Moments later nooses were looped around their necks as a group of women at the front of the crowd begged their captors for forgiveness.

Their pleas fell on deaf ears. As the sun came up on Sunday morning, the executioners pressed the buttons to trigger their deaths.

Alireza Mafiha and Mohammad Ali Sarvari were hanged after a YouTube video (pictured) was aired on Iranian state television showing them attacking a man

Mafiha, aged 23, and Sarvari, 20, were raised up by two extending cranes to a height of around 15 feet. They were dead within seconds.

The pair had been arrested after posting a video on YouTube in December showing them attacking a man with a machete on a Tehran street.

It showed four masked men on motorbikes approaching their victim before assaulting him with a machete and taking his bag and jacket.



The 37-second clip was later shown on Iranian television and caused outrage in an urban population terrified by rising crime levels,

Mafiha and Sarvari, who are both unemployed, were arrested along with two other men.

Alireza Mafiha and Mohammad Ali Sarvari were convicted of 'waging war against God' when they carried out this attack on a man in Tehran

The YouTube video showed four masked men on motorbikes approaching their victim before two attacked him with a machete before stealing his jacket and bag

According to the Iranian Students News Agency, Mafiha had told his trial they had committed the crime because they were poor.

But this defence did not bring them any leniency from the authorities who have employed the harshest of methods to deal with relatively minor crimes.

They were convicted of 'waging war against God' - a broad charge that can cover actions ranging from anti-state organising to violent assaults which under Iran's interpretation of Islamic law is punishable by death.



The pairs’ accomplices have been sentenced to ten years in jail and 74 lashes. They will then be exiled to a smaller town for five years.

Iran carries out one of the world's highest number of annual executions, according to rights group Amnesty International.



But most take place in prisons and a public hanging is very rare.