‘Iran woman won’t be stoned to death’
Tehran, Dec. 11: An Iranian woman whose case drew international attention will not face death by stoning for adultery, Iran’s state-run news broadcaster Press TV reported.
In a report about Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, who has become a cause celebre among international human rights groups, the woman also confessed that she not only committed adultery but also had helped her lover Issa Taheri to murder her husband five years ago.
Press TV confirmed that the stoning sentence had been considered for the adultery charges by Iranian judges but was later dropped as part of a readjustment of Iran’s legal code.
“The sentencing in 2006 was a symbolic judgement, which had not been confirmed by all of the judges,” the English-language broadcast said.
Iran’s state justice system had in 2005 banned any further deaths by stoning, Press TV reported.
But by 2006, that ruling was still waiting to be integrated into Islamic law. In the judgement against Mohammadi-Ashtiani, death by stoning had been considered but not implemented, the TV report said.
In the confession part of the broadcast, Mohammadi-Ashtiani explained that she had an attack of bad conscience after the killing, and turned herself into the police custody and admitted to the crime. Her lover was also arrested, and confessed to murdering the husband, Ibrahim Ghadersadeh.
Ashtiani was convicted in 2006 of having an “illicit relationship” with two men after the murder of her husband the year before and was sentenced at that time to 99 lashes.
Later that year, she was also convicted of adultery and sentenced to be stoned, even though she retracted a confession that she says was made under duress.
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