Two Sisters Sentenced To Death By Stoning After Having Been Previously Tried And Punished in The Same Case!

By Lily Mazahery

Two Iranian sisters, who have been sentenced to death by stoning, have filed an official appeal in Iran's Supreme Court and have requested that their new sentence be reviewed by Iran's chief judge.

The two sisters, Zohreh and Azar, were arrested last year when Zohreh's husband contacted the local police and gave a video tape, which he claimed contained evidence of inappropriate relations between his wife, his sister-in-law, and other men.

Last year, a man contacted the police in Shahryar, Iran, and claimed that he has noticed that his wife and her sister invite other men to the house when he is not home, and engage in sexual relations with those men. In his complaint, the man stated: "I have been suspicious of my 27 year old wife, Zohreh, for some time now. She had not been treating me well for some time, and her actions had led me to believe that my wife no longer wishes to live with me. One day, when she was not home, I installed a camera in an AC vent to find out if she was faithful to me, and to monitor her actions when I was not home. Two days later, when I retrieved the camera, I noticed that my wife, Zohreh Kabiri-Niat and her sister, Azar Kabiri-Niat, bring men to the house every day after I leave and have relations with them."

Based on this complaint, officials arrested and interrogated Zohreh and Azar. Both denied having engaged in any kind of illicit relation whatsoever, and by rejecting that the film in question has anything to do with them, they disputed the charges against them. However, after several more interrogation sessions, they confessed that they were in fact the two women seen in the video tape. In light of this confession, and despite the fact that there were no scenes in the video tape that showed the two women engaging in any inappropriate conduct whatsoever, their case was sent to court as a criminal matter.

After trial in Branch 127 of General Court of Ferdis, Karaj, Zohreh and Azar were sentenced to 99 lashes, and with the approval of this sentence, their sentence was carried out and they were returned to prison. Although the sisters were expected to be released from jail, they received a summons six months later for a new trial in Branch 80 of Tehran's Criminal Court based on charges of adultery. Zohreh and Azar were transferred to Branch 80, where they were tried by a panel of 5 judges. Once again, the two women maintained that they had not engaged in inappropriate acts with any men, and that the video tape had nothing to do with them whatsoever.

Zohreh, whose husband had provided the video tape to the police, stated: "I have been a student for many years and I have earned my bachelor's degree in history. I was even teaching classes and I enjoyed my job. However, after a while, my husband decided that I should not work, and my insistence to continue my career led nowhere. My husband's actions damaged our relationship. He was always suspicious of me; in his mind, the reason for our problems was that I was having relations with someone else, even though the problems between me and my husband were based in his mistreatment of me."

She went on to add: "I do not accept my 'confessions' under interrogations, and I deny whatever it is that they claim I said." On the other hand, Azar's husband has never filed any type of a grievance against his wife during this process, and has even stated that he has no complaints about his wife. Because at the time of the second trial documents relating to the original sentence of 99 lashes could not be found in the case file, judges of Branch 80 of Tehran's Criminal Court sentenced Zohreh and Azar to death by stoning. The sentence was then sent to Iran's Supreme Court for approval.

In an interview with journalist Marjan Laghaee, defense attorney for the two sisters, Mr. Jabbar Sollati stated: "Unfortunately, the case has fundamental problems, since a person can not be tried twice for the same crime. Yet, these two sisters have been tried twice for the same case, and two sentences has been issues for them. At first, the two sisters were accused of inappropriate relations in this case, were found guilty, and their sentence was even carried out. Yet, after that, in the same case, they were charged with adultery, were tried on those charges, and have been sentenced to death by stoning."

Mr. Sollati continued: "On the other hand, in this case, the circumstances that are required to prove adultery -- confession by the accused on four different occasions that can be corroborated by the testimony of four eye-witnesses to the alleged crime – is entirely absent, and there is absolutely no legal document in this case that a judge can use to issue a stoning sentence."

According to Mr. Sollati, "the investigative magistrate in this case requested that the sisters be charged with inappropriate relations at one point, and then, in the same case, he also charged them with adultery. However, given that the charges of inappropriate relation and adultery have been separated from one another, official documents about the sisters' previous trial and the execution of their original sentence are missing! This same case file has also been sent to the Supreme Court, and Branch 26 of the high Court has also approved the stoning sentence." The sisters' lawyer went on to say: "given that I view this sentence to be against principles of Sharia and illegal, I have filed an official objection, and I have asked that the head of judiciary review the case once again."