Mohammed Bijeh
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| “ | I suffered cruely from childhood, and when I compared my life with others, I had to commit such acts. | „ |
| ~ Mohammed Bijeh |
Mohammed Bijeh (February 7, 1975 – March 16, 2005) was an Iranian serial killer better known as the Tehran Desert Vampire. He was convicted of raping and killing 41 young boys between March and September 2004, and was sentenced to 100 lashes followed by execution. All the boys were between 8 to 15 years old. Additionally, he killed two adults.
The murder of children around Tehran was recognized as the largest criminal case in Iran for the last 71 years, and strongly influenced public opinion in the country.
Biography edit
Muhammad Basjee, known as Bijeh, was born into a crowded family. He had six brothers and six half-brothers. When he was four years old, his mother died of cancer. His father was a merchant who married immediately after the death of Bijeh’s mother. Bijeh never remembered his mother and said that his father was a barbaric person who beat him and chained his legs during childhood.
His father forced him to abandon school and work. He was 11 when he moved to Khatunabad with his family, where he began working at a furnace. Around that time, he was raped multiple times.
Bijeh's modus operandi was to lure young boys to the desert to hunt animals. His murder method was a blow to the head with a stone followed by sexual abuse. He would then bury the bodies in the desert with other dead animals.
Bijah was arrested on September 24, 2004 and tried in Branch 74 of the Tehran Penal Code, under the presiding Judge Mansour Yavarzadeh Yeganeh and his four other lawyers, and by a majority of its judges. On November 27, 2004, he was sentenced to be executed. Bijeh said that if he was not arrested, he would kill 100 children. He said about his death sentence: "I do not deserve to be sentenced to death." Police arrested 16 of their officers in the handling of this case, and the judiciary also announced that Pakdasht prosecutors, as well as two investigators and a prosecutor's office, had filed a "brief" case.
On March 16, 2005, in Pakdasht, Iran, the town near the desert area where the killings occurred, in front of a crowd of about 5,000, Bijeh's shirt was removed, and he was handcuffed to an iron post, where he received his lashings from different judicial officials. He fell to the ground more than once during the punishment but did not cry out. A relative of one of the victims managed to get past security and stab Bijeh. The mother of one of the victims put a blue nylon rope around his neck, and he was hoisted about 10 meters in the air by a crane until he died.