Posted on 02/15/2003 10:51:09 AM PST by knighthawk
TEHRAN, Feb 14 (AFP) - Iran's Supreme Court overturned Friday the death sentence imposed on dissident academic Hashem Aghajari for blasphemy, the state news agency IRNA reported.
The majority of the judges of the Supreme Court consider that the verdict was contrary to the law," said one of them, Aytatollah Seyed Mohammad Sajadi. "The verdict has therefore been quashed. The case will be returned to a court in Hamedan," the western city where Aghajari was convicted.
Aghajari, a disabled veteran of the Iran-Iraq war and supporter of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, drew the anger of the country's religious establishment when he delivered a speech last July questioning clerics' right to rule in Iran.
On November 6 he was sentenced to hang, sparking widespread student protests and even unease from prominent conservatives.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered a review of the verdict later the same month saying it played into the hands of Iran's enemies, but the hardline judiciary had been slow to act on the order.
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