Author:
Publication: BBC News
Date: February 14, 2003
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2763807.stm
Reports say Iran's Supreme Court
has revoked a death sentence imposed on dissident academic Hashem Aghajari,
whose sentencing provoked nationwide demonstrations.
The history professor had been condemned
to death in November for insulting Islam and questioning clerical rule
during a speech.
"The death sentence against Aghajari
has been revoked by a majority of votes by the review judges," said Ayatollah
Mohammad Sajjadi, one of the judges who heard an appeal of Mr Aghajari's
case on Friday.
"The decision came after weeks of
careful study and scrutinising of Aghajari's entire speech. Three out of
four judges decided that the charges against Aghajari was not compatible
with his speech," he said in remarks quoted by the Associated Press news
agency.
The Supreme Court would refer Mr
Aghajari's case to an appeal court in Hamedan - the western Iranian city
where he was convicted - for a review the remainder of his sentence, Sajjadi
added.
For his remarks in June, Mr Aghajari
was also sentenced to 74 lashes, banned from teaching for 10 years and
banished to three remote cities for eight years.
Mr Aghajari enraged conservatives
when he said that Muslims should not uncritically follow the line laid
down by Islamic clerics "like monkeys".
He questioned why clerics alone
had the right to interpret Islam, which led many to accuse him of being
"Iran's Salman Rushdie".
President's protest
The sentencing of the academic to
death led to large-scale student protests, highlighting the power struggle
between the country's liberals and hard-liners.
Iran's parliament denounced the
verdict as "disgusting" and President Mohammad Khatami also condemned it.
But hard-liners, who dominate the
judiciary and police, defended the verdict.
Professor Aghajari initially said
he would not appeal against the death sentence, challenging the judiciary
to carry it out. But his lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, filed an appeal on 2 December
despite his client's objections.
Last week Mr Nikbakht predicted
that the review of the death sentence would be favourable.
Human rights group Amnesty International
has taken up the case of Professor Aghajari, a 45- year-old veteran of
the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
