A man who decapitated his wife and paraded down the street with her head in his hands has been sentenced to just eight years behind bars in Iran.

Mum-of-one Mona Heydari was just 17 when she was dragged from a car outside the family home and butchered, the court heard.

Husband Sajjad Heydari, and his brother Heydar carried out the attack in Ahvaz, the capital of the southwestern Khuzestan Province, in February last year.

Mona – who had been married aged just 12 – had fled her violent husband with another man.

Astonishingly, her own father tracked her down in Turkey and returned her to the husband who killed her.

Shocking video evidence emerged of her grinning husband carrying her head in one hand and a huge knife in the other.

Court spokesman Massud Setayeshi said that Heydari was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for murder.

He received a further eight months for intentional assault.

Heydari’s brother – who had dumped Mona’s headless corpse -was sentenced to 45 months in prison for complicity in intentional homicide.

Mona had earlier fled to Turkey but was brought home by her father, named only as Javid in local media.

Astonishingly he used Interpol to trace her and returned her to Iran, where her husband – who is also her cousin – slaughtered her, claiming she had shamed him.

Shockingly, her father defended marrying her off at the age of 12 to a relative and added that violence in a relationship that she had fled from was normal.

The dad described the husband that they chose for her as a good husband, saying that he worked hard and provided her with the “best life”.

After the verdict, it was revealed that Mona’s father had not insisted on esas – Iran’s Islamic law of retribution.

He said: “She was not forced to marry, and in fact the husband provided her with the very best of lives.

“It’s true, there was fighting between them, and sometimes there was violence and she would return home, but she only stayed for two or three days and then he would pick her up and life would return to normal.

“These fights between husband and wife are completely normal and I don’t think there was a problem as she did not ask for a divorce.”

He admitted in hindsight that she was probably too young to marry, but added: “We got a certificate of confirmation that she was physically old enough to marry, and there was not any physical problem in the relationship.”

The family claimed that the husband was mocked and insulted by the fact that his wife had fled to Turkey with another man.

Images of her grinning husband allegedly holding the decapitated head of his teenage wife in one hand and a large blade in the other shocked the world.

The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said the victim was forced to marry her cousin Sajjad Heydari when she was just 12 years old.

They also said the young girl allegedly suffered domestic violence, and every time she expressed a desire to divorce him, her family pressured her to return home for the sake of their child.

Local media said the brother of her husband wrapped the girl’s body in a blanket and dumped it while the husband showed off his wife’s head. i

In the video, the suspect is seen grinning from ear to ear as he holds the teenager’s head, passing by local residents.

Meanwhile, the state-run news site Rokna was reportedly shut down for publishing the story and the footage at the time of the incident.

The NCRI’s Women’s Committee said: “Not a week goes by without some form of honour killing making headlines. The clerical regime’s failure to criminalise these murders has led to a catastrophic rise in honour killings.

“In a report published in 2019, the state-run Sharq daily newspaper wrote that an annual average of 375 to 450 honour killings are recorded in Iran. The murders are more prevalent in Khuzestan, Kurdistan, Ilam, and Sistan and Baluchestan.

“Some women’s rights activists believe that honour killings in Iran are officially justified as ‘family differences’.

“The catastrophic rise in honour killings in Iran is rooted in misogyny and the patriarchal culture institutionalised in the laws and society. Although the father, brother, or husband holds the knife, sickle, or rifle, the murders are rooted in the medieval outlook of the ruling regime. The clerical regime’s laws officially denote that women are second-degree citizens owned by men.”