In an unusual turn in the case, the lawyer also confirmed that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was lashed 99 times last week in a separate punishment meted out because a British newspaper ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as her. Under Iran's clerical rule, women must cover their hair in public.
With the end of Ramadan this week, the mother of two could be executed "any moment," said her lawyer, Javid Houtan Kian.
The sentence was put on hold in July after an international outcry over the brutality of the punishment, and it is now being reviewed by Iran's supreme court.
Ashtiani was convicted in 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men after the murder of her husband the year before and was sentenced at that time to 99 lashes. Later that year, she was also convicted of adultery and sentenced to be stoned, even though she retracted a confession that she says was made under duress.
"The possibility of stoning still exists, any moment," Kian told The Associated Press. "Her stoning sentence was only delayed; it has not been lifted yet." She was lashed on Thursday, he said, citing information from a fellow prisoner who was released last week. Kian has been allowed no direct contact with his client since Iranian authorities broadcast a purported confession from a woman identified as Ashtiani on state-run television last month.
"We have no access to Ashtiani, but there is no reason for the released prisoner to lie" about the flogging.
There was no official confirmation of that new punishment.
Earlier, the woman's son, 22-year-old Sajjad Qaderzadeh, said he did not know whether the new lashing sentence had been carried out yet, but that he also heard about it from a prisoner who recently left the Tabriz prison where his mother is being held.
The Times of London, which published the photo, apologized in its Monday edition but added that the lashing "is simply a pretext." "The regime's purpose is to make Ms. Ashtiani suffer for an international campaign to save her that has exposed so much iniquity," the newspaper said.
