Verdict Postponed in Iran Stoning Case

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com

The Iranian court has postponed the court date for the final verdict of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani --the woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery in Iran.

Ashtiani's hearing --originally set for last Saturday -- is now scheduled for Saturday, August 21.

This come two days after the after the country announced Ashtiani, 43, will not be executed during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

There has been much confusion about the status of that sentence. The Iranian Embassy in London has said she will not be stoned, but according to Amnesty International, the stoning sentence still stands.

Last week, an Iranian television station aired an interview with Ashtiani, in which she confessed to having been an accomplice to the murder of her husband. Many saw it as a forced confession. Ashtiani’s words, in her native Azeri language, were voiced over into Farsi. Her face, framed in a chador, was blurred.

Human rights advocates said it was impossible to tell when the interview had been filmed, and questioned whether a lawyer had been present.

Amnesty said it goes against all international legal norms to have an interview with someone on death row, having them talk about their involvement in a crime, as that person sits on death row.

Also, Ashtiani is sentenced to stoning for adultery, not murder. She has already received lashings for that charge.

One of Ashtiani’s lawyers, Mohammad Mostafaei, who has fled Iran for his safety, has said Ashtiani was involved in the murder, that she had been manipulated by another man to give her husband sleeping pills, so that that man could go on to kill Ashtiani’s husband. That lawyer claims Ashtiani had been abused by her late husband, and is illiterate. It is a murky situation.

The International Campaign Against Stoning has vehemently denied Ashtiani had anything to do with the murder of her husband, and they say, from the court documents they have seen, that she was acquitted of any involvement in her husband’s murder. Ashtiani’s children have reportedly said the same thing.

The Campaign Against Stoning has been in touch with Ashtiani’s children, who say that she was beaten and coerced into saying what she did on television last week, with a promise from someone in the office of the Tabriz Prosecutor, that if she confessed on television to taking part in the murder, he would do his best to get her death sentence overturned.

While Iran has accused the Western media of blowing this case out of proportion, there is widespread concern in the international human rights community that Ashtiani, even if she escapes death by stoning, could be hanged, for having an alleged extramarital affair.