A man who allegedly cut his teenage wife’s head off before smilingly parading it through the streets has finally been arrested and charged with murder.

Sadegh Jafari Chegni, the Public Prosecutor of Ahvaz, a city in southwestern Iran and the capital of Khuzestan province, said that the alleged murderer, Sajjad Heydari, has been arrested and charged with murdering his 17-year-old wife Mona Heydari over two months ago in early February.

The macabre scene was filmed in the neighbourhood of Khashayar in the city of Ahvaz in the south-western Iranian province of Khuzestan on 5th February.

Mona, 17, was reportedly the mother of a three-year-old son with her killer husband.

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

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.

At one point, Mona reportedly fled to Turkey to escape her partner’s violence, but returned after finding it difficult to live alone in a strange country.

According to reports, Mona had been in Iran for a few days when Sajjad and his brother reportedly tied her hands and feet and decapitated her.

Other parties are reportedly being investigated as well.

The Public Prosecutor of Ahvaz added: “After completing the investigation with an extraordinary investigation by the Special Investigator for Murder in the centre of the province, an indictment was issued in accordance with the complaint of the parents . . . “

Footage allegedly showing the grinning Iranian man holding the decapitated head of his teenage wife in one hand and a large blade in the other after allegedly taking part in an ‘honour killing’ with his brother made international headlines after going viral on social media in February.

Local media said the brother wrapped the girl’s body in a blanket and dumped it in one area while the husband walked along the street with his wife’s head in one hand and a large blade in the other.

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

The chief of the State Security Force (SSF) said the motive for the killing was “family differences”.

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.”

They added: “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.”

The dead woman’s dad allegedly managed to track her down with the aid of Interpol. The man, identified only as Javad, filed a complaint with cops in Iran who then gave him her address, obtained via Interpol.

The dad then travelled to the country with a translator and all the paperwork necessary to bring her back home, where she was then butchered by her husband, who is also her cousin, to ‘avenge the family’s honour’.

The dad also 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, and that the main thing was that the husband had worked hard to provide for his young wife.

He added: “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 problems in the relationship.”

She was the mother of a three-year-old son but that did not save her from her husband’s wrath.