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A death row prisoner is to be hanged again after officials botched his execution.

Alireza M, 37, was certified dead after being hanged for 12 minutes and taken to the prison morgue.

But when his family went to collect his body for burial a day later, they discovered he was still breathing.

A relative said: “When we went to the coroner’s office we found him alive again which made his two ­daughters very happy.”

Alireza, who was convicted of drug crimes, is under armed guard in a hospital close to the jail where he was being held in Bojnourd, northeast Iran.

But the country’s judiciary said his reprieve would be brief.

An official said: “The verdict was the death penalty and it will be carried out when he’s well.”

Iran is thought to have executed 560 people this year, including 200 since new “moderate” president Hassan Rouhani came to power in June.

Crimes punishable by death include theft and “un-Islamic behaviour”. Only China executes more people.