TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian authorities have suspended the sentence of death by stoning for a woman convicted of adultery, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday, after weeks of condemnation from around the world.
"The verdict regarding the extramarital affairs has stopped and it's being reviewed," Foreign Ministry Ramin Mehmanparast told Iran's state-run English-language Press TV.
The statement came a day after European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called the sentence "barbaric beyond words," the latest in a string of criticisms by foreign powers.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was convicted of adultery -- a capital crime in the Islamic Republic -- in 2006. She also has been charged with involvement in her husband's murder.
In a live telephone interview, Mehmanparast said the murder charge was "being investigated for the final verdict to be issued."
Iranian media have suggested that the stoning sentence -- imposed for certain crimes under sharia law which Iran adopted after the 1979 Islamic revolution -- would not be carried out, but that Ashtiani might still be executed by hanging.
"We think that this is a very normal case," Mehmanparast said. "This dossier looks likes many other dossiers that exist in other countries."
At no point in the interview, which was in the Farsi language but was dubbed over by a simultaneous translation into English, did he mention "stoning," referring merely to Ashtiani's "death sentence."
Mehmanparast blamed the United States for stirring the furor to hurt Iran's international image as it faces sanctions aimed at curbing its nuclear program.
"It looks like they are playing a political game," he said.
According to Amnesty International, Iran is second only to China in the number of people it executes. It put to death at least 346 people in 2008.
Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy, homosexuality and drug trafficking are all punishable by death in Iran.
Source: Reuters, September 8, 2010
Iran stoning woman 'unaware' of lashing reports
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| Public flogging in Qazvin, Iran 80 lashes for young Iranian who abused alcohol and had sex |
Fars reported that Vahid Kazemzadeh, member of the Iranian judiciary's Islamic Human Rights Commission, said he met Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani who also complained to him that she has never met her lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaie.
"She was unaware and surprised by reports of (receiving) lashes after a British newspaper printed a picture which was not hers and had mistakenly mentioned her name under it," Kazemzadeh said.
Mohammadi-Ashtiani's son, Sajjad, told a Paris news conference by telephone on Monday that he "heard" his 43-year-old mother received 99 lashes in prison after The Times of London published on August 28 a picture claiming to be of Mohammadi-Ashtiani and showing her hair unveiled.
By law, women in the Islamic republic must be covered from head to foot, with their hair completely veiled.
Kazemzadeh said Mohammadi-Ashtiani also claims that she has never met Mostafaie personally, who she had appointed as her lawyer through another woman.
"Ms Ashtiani claims she has never met Mr Mohammad Mostafaie, the lawyer who has tarnished her and her family's reputation... by conducting interviews and spreading news without her consent," Kazemzadeh said.
He said that she claimed to have paid Mostafaie 20 million rials (2,000 dollars) to represent her but he left the country.
"The whole world is aware of my situation because of Mostafaie's rogue action. I am ready to be present in front of the media and on television any time to defend myself," Kazemzadeh quoted Mohammadi-Ashtiani as telling him, adding that she had filed a complaint against the lawyer with the judiciary.
Kazemzadeh also said that Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a mother of two, told him that she continued to have weekly meetings with her family and children, Farideh and Sajjad.
On Monday, Sajjad said he had no contact with his mother since her televised "confession" on August 11, in which she admitted having a hand in her husband's murder.
Sajjad has expressed fear that his mother would be executed after Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month which ends this week.
Iranian judiciary officials say that Mohammadi-Ashtiani has been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. She has also received a 10-year jail term for participating in her husband's murder.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has said that her stoning sentence remained stayed as a final verdict in her case was still pending.
Several international governments and human rights bodies have denounced her stoning as barbaric, and some have even questioned whether she received a fair trial.
Source: AFP, September 8, 2010 - Photo: "His face covered by a balaclava, an official brandishing a cane repeatedly lashes the back of a man found guilty of breaking Iran's morality laws.Two police officers hold the legs of 25-year-old Saeed Ghanbari and another his arms to ensure there is no escape from the punishment of 80 lashes handed down by a religious court.Traffic was brought to a halt in Qazvin, 90 miles west of the capital Tehran, as more than 1,000 men gathered behind barricades to watch the public flogging." (Source: The Daily Mail, August 2007)
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