TEHRAN, 15 April 2004 — Iranian dissident intellectual Hashem Aghajari has had his four-year jail sentence for insulting religious values dropped, but must await a review of his death sentence for blasphemy before he can hope to be released from prison, a judicial source said yesterday.
Aghajari “has been pardoned for the four years in prison, but he will not be freed because the second part of his case is still an open matter,” Zekrollah Ahmadi, judiciary chief in Hamedan province, said.
“We will have to wait for the Supreme Court’s decision” on the death sentence “to know if he can be freed or not,” Ahmadi added.
Aghajari’s lawyer, Saleh Nikhbakht, said his client “could be freed if the original arrest warrant against him were converted into a warning.”
Nikhbakht said the prison sentence had been set aside because Aghajari had completed one-third of it and because the law stipulates releases in cases where the original sentence is less than five years.
In 2002, the disabled war veteran and history professor delivered an explosive speech in Hamedan directed at the very core of Iran’s Islamic government.
In November 2002, a judge in Hamedan ruled that Aghajari had committed blasphemy and, in line with Islamic and Iranian law, deserved to die. He was also sentenced to eight years in prison and to be flogged.
But following a week of protests by students and complaints by reformist government officials, Khamenei demanded the sentence be reviewed.
In January 2003, the Supreme Court annulled the verdict and ordered a re-trial.
The prison sentence was also reduced to four years and the flogging order replaced by a fine.
