The Study of Criminal Sanction Regarding the Hostage-Taking in the Iranian Legal System Alongside the International Instruments

Hostage-taking as a crime with the aim of forcing a third party to commit or omit to do something has been of interest to criminals. The need to deal with this crime because of its domestic and international consequences has led to more attention of criminal legal systems to deal with it at the national and international level. The criminalization of such deed in the statute of International Criminal Court (1998) as one of the examples of war crimes is an indicator of the depth of concern of international community about the given crime. Convention against taking a hostage (1979), as the most important document tailored for this crime, has obliged the member countries to impose criminal sanctions for the perpetrators of this crime. According to the Iranian legal system, in spite of the adoption of this Convention in the Parliament, certain criminal sanctions for the perpetrators of this crime have not been established. Hence, in the cases of committing this crime, there is not a same procedure in order to determine the punishment for its perpetrators. In this paper, reviewing the Convention and other international documents and related provisions in Iran, determining the constitutive elements of this crime, the penalties applicable in the case have been investigated.