Iranian regime confirms stoning sentence against adulteress

TEHRAN (AFP) Iran's supreme court has confirmed a sentence of death by stoning against a woman convicted of adultery in the southern city of Shiraz, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
The woman identified as Afsaneh R., was also given a second death sentence for murdering her husband with the help of a man identified only as Reza, who had an affair with her, Etemad Melli newspaper reported.

The report said the supreme court had in August confirmed verdicts first issued in April, but gave no reason for the delay in making the decision public.

It said Reza had also been sentenced to 100 lashes for having an illegitimate relationship and 15 years in jail for collaborating in murder.

Under Iran's Islamic law, adultery is still theoretically punishable by stoning, which involves the public hurling stones at the convict buried up to his waist. A woman is buried up to her shoulders.

An Iranian rights group said in July that eight women and one man had been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery over the past few years and urged the Islamic republic to halt their executions.

In August, the judiciary said it had scrapped the punishment in Iran's new Islamic penal code, whose outlines have been adopted by the parliament but its details are yet to be debated by MPs before final approval and coming into effect.

The judiciary also said stoning sentences against several convicts had been suspended and commuted to either lashes or jail terms but it was not known if any of the nine convicts were among those whose lives have been spared.

In July 2007, the Islamic republic drew international outrage by stoning to death a man convicted of adultery, Jafar Kiani, in a village in the northwest of the country.