Iran overturns professor's death sentence

A university professor whose death sentence provoked nationwide protests until it was lifted by Iran’s Supreme Court has been sentenced by an appeals court to just under four years in jail, his lawyer said today.

Hashem Aghajari, a history professor at Tehran’s Teachers Training University, was sentenced to three years, 11 months and 29 days.

The verdict also barred him from running for office or occupying government posts for five years and suspended a previous sentence of 74 lashes, lawyer Saleh Nikbakht said.

Aghajari was sentenced for insulting Islam and questioning clerical rule during a speech in western Iran last June.

Last November, he was condemned him to death, banned from teaching for 10 years, exiled for eight years to three remote cities and sentenced to receive 74 lashes.

Iran’s Supreme Court lifted the death sentence in February, saying the charges were inconsistent with Aghajari’s speech, and returned the case to the issuing court for review.

Nikbakht said the appeals court issued its verdict on April 26 and that he was notified on June 9.

He said he did not announce the verdict because it coincided with student-led protests against the ruling Islamic establishment.

“I would have been accused by the judiciary of inciting public opinion,” he said.

Nikbakht criticised the verdict as “an insult to justice and the judiciary.”

He said the appeals court ruling made new charges against his client, including libel and spreading lies.

Nikbakht said he appealed the new sentence earlier this week. It was not immediately clear if this would be Aghajari’s last appeal.

Aghajari’s sentencing last November provoked the biggest student protests in Iran in three years and highlighted the power struggle between the country’s liberals and hard-liners.

He initially said he would not appeal the death sentence, challenging the judiciary to carry it out. But his lawyer filed an appeal over Aghajari’s objections.

Both the parliament and President Mohammad Khatami denounced the death sentence.

But hard-liners – who dominate government bodies such as the judiciary and police and accuse reformists of undermining the principles of the 1979 Islamic revolution – defended the sentence.