The escalation and modification of criminal charges occur when, amid media coverage of a crime, the criminal justice system seeks to appease public and media demands by reclassifying the offender’s actions as a more severe offense due to the fine line between the material elements of two or more crimes. A prime example of the said practice is the conflation of moharebeh (waging war against God and the state) with offenses such as armed robbery, insurrection, knife brandishing, disturbing public peace, and crimes against domestic and foreign security (under Articles 498 to 512 of the Fifth Book of the Islamic Penal Code of 2013). Once the charge of moharebeh is imposed on the accused, they are sentenced in the court of first instance—and, in some cases, in the Supreme Court—to the most severe of the four penalties for moharebeh, which is the death penalty. The research employed a descriptive-analytical method, utilizing library resources (books, articles, news websites) and conducting interviews with judges from the Magistrate Courts, general courts, and university professors. The findings indicate that the judiciary’s charging of defendants with moharebeh has become a pretext for implementing security-driven and punitive measures. Furthermore, the study highlights the influence of the media on the issuance of severe sentences by primary courts and the predominance of populism over elitism in case handling, as evidenced by the Supreme Court’s overturning of primary court rulings in cases with significant media backlash.