CAIRO: An Iranian woman, found guilty of adultery in 2006 and sentenced to death by stoning, but had her sentenced reduced to a 10-year jail term, could still face being hanged for her alleged involvement in her husband's death, Iranian officials said on Sunday. Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, 43, has faced repeated attempts to have her executed in the conservative Islamist country since her first trial in 2006. International rights groups and activists lashed out at Iran over the case, and the storm of international protests led to her removing the death by stoning sentence. But now officials are saying that she was the main culprit in assisting her alleged lover to kill her husband. Ashtiani was temporarily sentenced by a court in the provincial capital Tabriz to a 10-year jail term until her alleged role in the murder was clarified. “The final decision should be made by the judiciary chief, Ayatollah (Sadeq) Amoli-Larijani, who is currently evaluating whether the sentence should be changed to execution by hanging,” Malek Ejdar-Sharifi, the head of the Azerbaijan judiciary, was quoted as saying by Fars news agency. Given the international attention in the case, the final sentence would be decided by the judiciary headquarters in Tehran, and not in Tabriz. Legal experts believe a death sentence would not be upheld, in order to avoid any negative political fallout. In a press conference by the judiciary in January for foreign journalists in Tabriz, Ashtiani “confessed” to being an accomplice in the murder of her husband by her lover. Her son claimed at the same press conference that his mother was involved in his father's killing, but asked that she be spared execution. In late 2010, Iranian authorities paraded the woman on national television, where she reportedly confessed to orchestrating the murder, but her lawyers and international rights group argue this was a “coerced” confession and should not be permissible in a court of law. “It appears that the Iranian authorities are using the Iranian media as a tool to portray her as a dangerous criminal who deserves to be executed. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani must not be executed by any means, and if she continues to be held solely on the grounds of consensual sexual relations, the Iranian authorities must release her,” said Amnesty International's Philip Luther at the time. ** Portions of a dpa report were used. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/iK9EP Tags: Death Penalty, Murder, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani Section: Human Rights, Iran, Latest News, Women
