Iran may execute “aldulterer” Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani by hanging rather than stoning
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman convicted of adultery and sentenced to die by stoning, may be hanged instead when she is executed, Iranian officials reportedly said Monday.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, speaks during an interview with a group of journalists from international news networks at a guesthouse belonging to a government welfare organisation in Iran’s northwestern city of Tabriz on Jan. 1, 2011.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman convicted of adultery and sentenced to die by stoning, may be hanged instead when she is executed, Iranian officials reportedly said Monday.
Ashtiani's husband was murdered in 2005, after which an Iranian court convicted the mother of two of having an "illicit relationship" with two men.
A court sentenced Ashtiani, 44, to be stoned to death in 2006, Reuters reported, but the sentence was suspended last year in the face of international outrage.
Ashtiani was also later convicted of being an accessory to her husband's murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Since the 1979 revolution, under Iran's strict interpretation of Islamic law, adultery is punished by death by stoning, while crimes such as murder, rape, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking are punishable by hanging.
Since Ashtiani's sentence was halted, Iranian officials have, the Guardian writes, "made confusing and often contradictory comments about her fate."
In 2010 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied she had been given a sentence of stoning, while a senior adviser to Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, signalled her life could be spared.
Meanwhile, Malek Ajdar Sharifi, the head of the judiciary in East Azerbaijan, reportedly said Sunday that Tabriz prison in the west of Iran, where Ashtiani is being held, did not have the "necessary facilities" to carry out the sentence of stoning.
Therefore, he said, authorities were considering hanging as an alternative.
Sharifi said Islamic scholars were being consulted determine whether it was "legally and religiously possible" to go ahead with the hanging instead of stoning.
"There is no rush … our Islamic experts are reviewing Ashtiani's sentence to see whether we can carry out the execution of a person sentenced to stoning by hanging," Reuters quoted Sharifi as saying in quotes carried by the semi-official Isna news agency. "As soon as the result of the investigation is obtained, we will carry out the sentence."
According to Amnesty International, Ashtiani has denied charges of "adultery while being married." The rights group says she was initially sentenced to — and received — 99 lashes.
According to Reuters, the European Union has called Ashtiani's stoning sentence "barbaric"; the Vatican has pleaded for clemency; and Brazil offered Ashtiani asylum.