Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning 'was sold for sex to fund her husband's drug addiction'



An Iranian widow sentenced to death by stoning for adultery suffered years of abuse at the hands of her drug addict husband, her lawyer said today.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was allegedly beaten and sold for sex by Ebrahim Ghaderzade, who she is accused of killing.

Her lawyer Mohammed Mostafaei said that he feared her life was now in imminent danger.

Emotional: Sakineh Mohammedi Ashtiani confessed to murdering her husband in a documentary shown in Iran earlier this month. Her lawyer said she had made the programme under duress



Reunion: Miss Ashtiani's son Sajad was also forced to take part in the documentary and played the part of his father

The Iranian authorities suspended the stoning after an outcry from the international community.

But Mr Mostafaei said that the regime was now intent on portraying her as a immoral woman who had murdered her husband so she could abscond with her lover.

'I believe my client is now in a very dangerous situation,' he told The Times. 'It's my duty to speak on her behalf. I can't stay silent'

Mr Mostafaei's comments come days after the Iranian government broadcast a documentary of Miss Ashtiani, 43, returning to her home.

There she re-enacted the murder of her husband and confessed afresh to the killing. Her son Sajad, who has been imprisoned for supporting his mother, was made to take the role of his dead father.



Miss Ashtiani's lawyer, who now lives in Norway after fleeing Iran in July, says that the broadcast by the state-run Press TV was an attempt to smear her reputation further.

'Just before they want to execute someone they put them on state TV to talk about their crime and condemn themselves,' he said.

Mr Mostafaei went on to describe Miss Ashtiani's account of how she had ended up on death row in Tabriz prison.

Brought up in the town of Osku, she said her father had forced her to marry the much older Ghaderzade who was 'very brutal' from the start.

She had two children but he continued to abuse her physically and verbally, refusing to give her a divorce.

Eventually he became an opium addict and demanded that she support his habit by prostituting herself.

Mr Mostafaei claimed she was raped in her own home with her husband's permission.



'When she told me about that she was sobbing,' he said.

Miss Ashtiani turned to a man called Isa Taheri, a relative of her husband, for comfort as Iran's strict laws offered her little legal recourse.

He eventually encouraged her to kill Ghaderzade, she claimed, and on September 14, 2005, the pair carried out the plan.

Death row: The Iranian regime has suspended a sentence of stoning but the widow still faces being executed

The victim was first rendered unconscious with an injection and then electrocuted.

Miss Ashtiani initially reported the death as suicide but she was later arrested, along with Taheri.

Mr Mostafaei said that his client was heavily under the influence of her lover and he had in fact committed the murder.

He has now walked free while she is still under a death sentence - despite her own children calling for clemency.

Miss Ashtiani was jailed for ten years for murder and sentenced to deah for adultery. She was also convicted of having illicit relations for which she received 99 lashes.

A number of celebrities, including Robert Redford, Robert De Niro and Sting have called for her release in an open letter to the Iranian regime.



In the letter published in The Times on Monday, more than 80 actors, artists, musicians, academics and politicians stated that 'Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has suffered enough'.

Other signatories include actor Colin Firth, artist Damien Hirst, Nobel literature laureates Wole Soyinka and V.S. Naipaul, British opposition leader Ed Miliband and former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner.



They called on Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to release her along with her son and another lawyer, who are also imprisoned.

Iran also says she has confessed to complicity in her husband's murder, while the man who was convicted for the murder is now free.

Hopes earlier rose that she was about to be released. This came about after the release of photographs by Iranian state-run Press TV showing her in the garden of her home with her son during the documentary.

Thousands of joyful messages appeared on the Twitter website after the International Committee Against Stoning, based in Germany, said 'sources in Iran' had word of her freedom.

International outcry: Miss Ashtiani's lawyer Mohammed Mostafaei said that she was a week woman who had been pressured into killing her husband

However Press TV later confirmed the images were from the documentary in which she was filmed 'confessing' to killing her husband.

Supporters of Ms Ashtiani insist her appearance was coerced, like previous televised 'confessions'.

Adultery is the only crime which carries that penalty under Iran's Islamic sharia law.



Her sentence was suspended earlier this year but she still faces possible execution by hanging for complicity in the murder of her husband.

The European Union has called the sentence 'barbaric', the Vatican pleaded for clemency and Brazil, which has tried to intervene in Iran's stand-off with the West over its nuclear programme, offered Ms Ashtiani asylum.

The case has put pressure on Iran at a time when the country's leadership is trying to shift the focus after crushing dissent over the disputed 2009 election which was won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In an interview with U.S. TV in September President Ahmadinejad denied Ashtiani was ever sentenced to stoning, contradicting other Iranian officials.

Iranian media do not refer to her stoning sentence for adultery, focusing instead on the murder charge.

While Iranian officials say Ms Ashtiani's case is purely a matter for the judiciary, it has become an international political cause and the head of Iran's Council of Human Rights said last month there was 'a good chance that her life could be saved'.

