Iran quashes execution verdict for football case woman

AFP - Iran has quashed the conviction of a woman sentenced to death for murdering a former football star's wife in a case that sparked a major scandal, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi overturned the execution verdict against Shahla Jahed and ordered a fresh probe into the case after finding flaws in the original investigation, the Etemad newspaper said.

"I wrote a letter to the judiciary chief and pointed out to him the flaws in the case," Jahed's lawyer Abdolsamad Khoramshahi was quoted as saying.

"After investigations, the verdict issued for Shahla was quashed in both its nature and its form," he added.

Etemad said that Shahroudi had now ordered a new investigation into the case in a court of first instance due to the "procedural flaws" in the first probe.

Jahed had faced hanging for the premeditated stabbing of Laleh Saharkhizan, the wife of former national football team player and top coach Nasser Mohammad Khani in June 2002. Her sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court in October 2005.

The bizarre case had transfixed Iran, filling the crime pages in the newspapers.

Khani had taken Jahed as a temporary wife, under a custom unique to Shia Islam and Jahed was accused of killing Khani's other wife in a crime of passion.

Jahed initially pleaded guilty after an 11-month silence in custody but then maintained her innocence, saying she had confessed to murder "only out of love for Nasser."

Locked up in Tehran's Evin prison for the past five years, Jahed is writing her autobiography and hopes she can be released on bail in time to spend the Iranian new year (March 21) with her family, her lawyer told Etemad.

But the victim's family said they did not believe Jahed's "claim to innocence" and would press for her execution.

"Several judges have found Shahla guilty," the paper quoted Saharkhizan's sister as saying without giving her name. "Laleh was a mother of two who was murdered in all innocence. Her murdered must be punished."

A star of the game in the late 1980s who went on to coach Tehran's popular Persepolis club, Khani was in Germany on a training trip at the time of the killing.

Khani had initially been suspected of complicity and held in jail for several months, but was released after Jahed's initial confession of guilt.

The footballer had been leading a double life for years with Jahed whom he had taken as his wife under a "temporary" marriage contract known in Iran as "sigheh"

Under the practice unique to Shiite Islam, Muslim males can take on temporary wives for periods ranging from just a few hours to several decades.