Iran sentences men to stoning, amputation of fingers

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Dec. 27 – Iran’s State Supreme Court upheld stoning and amputation sentences for four men and jail terms for several dozen other members of a gang in the north of the country, according to a report in a semi-official daily. Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Dec. 27 – Iran’s State Supreme Court upheld stoning and amputation sentences for four men and jail terms for several dozen other members of a gang in the north of the country, according to a report in a semi-official daily.

The men, who had been arrested in January in the town of Nowshahr in the northern province of Mazandaran, were all part of a gang called the “Wild West”, the hard-line daily Jomhouri Islami reported in its Sunday edition.

Three of the men – Eskandar M. (also known as Abbasi), Jamshid E., and his unnamed brother – were each given two death by hanging sentences and one death by stoning sentence.

Another man, identified only as Afshin R., was sentenced to have his fingers amputated and receive prison time.

Abbasi’s brother, son, and father were sentenced to five, seven, and one year in prison respectively.

Altogether, some 40 members of the gang were sentenced from one to 15 years prison time.

The report quoted the top religious judge from the town of Sari, Hojjatoleslam Moussavi, as saying that the State Supreme Court had upheld all the sentences and that they were all “definite”.

The men were accused of armed robbery and murder among other charges.

Earlier this month, an Islamic court in Tehran sentenced a woman to stoning for adultery in the town of Varamin.

Iran’s Islamic Penal Code is very specific about the manner of execution and types of stones which should be used for stoning sentences. Article 102 states that men will be buried up to their waists and women up to their breasts for the purpose of execution by stoning. Article 104 states, with reference to the penalty for adultery, that the stones used should “not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes, nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones”.