Iranian judicial official announced that three men arrested in November 2021 in southern Iran on charges of drugging and raping women were hanged on Tuesday.

The men were investigated after photos and videos of the alleged rapes began circulating on the Internet. The judiciary said that the men who were medical workers set up a fake beauty institute and drugged women with medications they stole from emergency health services.

Rape could carry the death penalty in Islamic law, but many instances of rape between acquaintances go unpunished. The Islamic penal code in Iran says that if rape takes place through deception, it is categorized as “sexual offence” but if it is carried out by force or threat of force, it is considered rape that carries the death penalty.

The law also specifically mentions intoxication of victims as the most serious category of rape with mandatory death penalty.

Court documents speak of one of the executed men setting up an “illegal beauty institute” and incapacitating some victims by injecting mild drugs before raping them and apparently taking images.

He was convicted of seven counts of rape, while one of the other suspects was convicted of four rapes and the third man for one rape.

The Judiciary in Hormozgan Province said that the men appealed their case multiple times and each time the relevant branch of the Supreme Court confirmed their conviction and the death penalty.

The hangings on Tuesday added to an estimated 354 executions so far in 2023 in Iran, the majority for narcotics convictions.