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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.
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