Ayat Khamenei orders reviewal of blasphemy case

By: Sheikh Muhammad Khurasani

TEHRAN, Iran: The supreme leader of Iran Ayatullah Ali Khamenei has ordered the judiciary to revise the case of an academic Hashem Aghajari who is sentenced to death for blasphemy, a government official announced Sunday.

Speaker of Parliament Mehdi Karrubi told parliament that the supreme leader had given the order in response to an appeal from hundreds of university professors protesting the sentence against their colleague Aghajari.

Tehran’s Jomhuri-ye Islami newspaper reported Sunday on its Internet site that an appeals court has been given the task of carefully examining Aghajari's case as a result of Ayatullah Khamanei's order.

Supreme leader’s order to the appellate court “referred ... to the importance of life in Islamic jurisprudence, and stressed the need for the ... sentence to be reviewed with greater care”, the daily quoted reliable sources as saying.

Earlier, he urged judges to “pay attention to the general behavior of the judicial apparatus particularly in sentencing and the running of the courts to avoid giving any pretext to either enemies or friendly critics for challenges”, state television reported.

Hujjatul Islam Khomeini, the grandson of the founder of Islamic Republic of Iran Grand Ayatullah Roohullah Khomeini late Friday aligned himself with protesters appealing for clemency for Aghajari.

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