Middle East News
Court approves Iranian Kurdish journalist's death sentence: report
By DPA
Nov 9, 2007, 17:02 GMT

Tehran - Iran's Supreme Court approved a death sentence for one Kurdish journalist on charges of espionage and revoked the same sentence against his other colleague, the ISNA students' new agency reported Friday.

'The supreme court approved the death sentence for Adnan Hassanpour,' his lawyer Saleh Nikbakht was quoted as saying by the agency, adding that 'the death sentence for Hiva Botimar was revoked and referred back to the revolutionary court for reinvestigation.'

The two Kurdish journalists, Adnan Hassanpour and Abdolvahed (Hiva) Botimar, were sentenced to death in July by a revolutionary court in the western province of Kurdistan.

Judiciary spokesman Ali-Reza Jamshidi said the two, from the Kurdish city Sanadaj, were to be executed on charges of 'Moharebeh,' an Islamic term meaning 'enmity with God' and considered a capital crime.

'These accusations are not examples of Moharebeh even if they supposedly are true,' Nikbakht said, adding that he would appeal to the court to revoke the death sentence for Hassanpour.

The exact charges brought against the two were not clear, but they reportedly had contacts with foreign and Iranian opposition media.

Under Iranian Islamic law, murder, rape, armed robbery, drug- trafficking of quantities in excess of five kilos and apostasy are punishable by death.