(CNN) Iranian champion wrestler Navid Afkari has been executed in Iran on Saturday, according to Iran's state-run news agency IRNA, despite a high-profile international campaign calling for the sentence not to be carried out. The 27-year-old was executed at a prison in Shiraz, according to IRNA. He had been sentenced to death in relation to the murder of the Iranian government's water and sewage department's security agent Hasan Turkman during the August 2018 protests in Shiraz, according to Iran's state media Mizan. "It is deeply upsetting that the pleas of athletes from around the world and all the behind-the-scenes work of the IOC, together with the NOC of Iran, United World Wrestling and the National Iranian Wrestling Federation, did not achieve our goal." According to Hamshari, Esmaeili said Afkari was required to appease the victim's family by paying a restitution.

Source: CNN September 12, 2020 10:15 UTC