Two more sentenced to death by stoning

Published on Wednesday 1 September 2010 17:15

Iran was last night courting further international outrage by sentencing two more people to death by stoning for alleged adultery.

The inflammatory rulings have emerged as Iranian hardliners have gone on the offensive against mounting Western pressure over the harrowing case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a mother of two who has been condemned to a stoning death on an unsubstantiated adultery charge.

Iran's supreme court approved the verdict on 28 August against a man and a woman convicted of having an extra-marital affair, Iran's Human Rights Activists News Agency said yesterday.

Amnesty International described the agency's report as "credible" and said it had received reports from the same agency in January that the couple had been found guilty of adultery and that the verdict was recently upheld by Iran's highest court.

Drewery Dyke, Amnesty's Iran expert, said that his organisation was also looking into recent reports that another couple, from Ghouchan, a city province in north-eastern Iran, had been sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery.

"We don't have precise information on these cases but we will be raising them directly with the Iranian authorities," Mr Dyke last night told The Scotsman.