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| Axis of Evil |
| Aghajari's mouthpiece files appeal... |
| 2002-12-02 |
| A lawyer for outspoken Iranian academic Hashem Aghajari has filed an appeal against his controversial death sentence for apostasy. "Hashem Aghajari's lawyer lodged an appeal Monday morning on the last day of a 20-day [appeal] period," court official Zekrollah Ahmadi told Tehran radio. The chief prosecutor, Ayatollah Abdolnabi Namazi, said last Tuesday that if Mr Aghajari did not appeal within 20 days, the court verdict would be final. It is not clear whether Mr Aghajari has now changed his mind or whether his lawyer Saleh Nikbakht went ahead anyway. Mr Nikbakht had earlier said he would appeal, even against his client's wishes, in order to calm the crisis. Mr Aghajari, a history professor at a Tehran university, was charged after making a speech in which he said that each generation should re-interpret aspects of Islam rather than blindly following religious leaders. Two weeks of student protests followed - the largest in three years - which unnerved Iran's conservative hardliners and apparently led Mr Khamenei to order a review of the sentence. Many analysts then expected the ruling to be quickly reversed but judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi said the court would "follow normal legal procedures to reconsider the verdict". 'Nuther words, they were going to see if he was bluffing. If he wasn't bluffing, they were going to hang him, come what may. If he was bluffing, they're going to show him as craven. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |