Spare the Head and Spoil the Child

Man Beheads Daughter Thinking She Was Raped

TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian man cut off his seven- year-old daughter's head after suspecting she had been raped by her uncle, the Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper said on Sunday.

A post-mortem, however, showed the girl was still a virgin.

"The motive behind the killing was to defend my honor, fame, and dignity," the paper quoted the father as saying.

Rape often goes unreported in Iran where the conservative society sees it as bringing shame on the victim and family.

Local people have called for the man, who has been arrested, to be hanged, but under Iran's Islamic law only the father of the victim has the right to demand the death sentence.

The paper said the father, named as Khazir, has three wives.