French Foreign Minister Pledges To Help Iranian Woman Sentenced To Death By Stoning

[Turborama]

Source: RTT News

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Monday that he was prepared to do everything possible to save an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning on an adultery conviction, stressing that her case has become a "personal cause" for him.

Kounchner made the remarks while talking to reporters in Paris after a meeting with Mohammad Mostafei, one of the lawyers of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani-- the Iranian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning in July.

"I'm ready to do anything to save her," Bernard Kouchner told reporters in Paris on Monday after his meeting with Mostafei. "If I must go to Tehran to save her, I'll go to Tehran."

His remarks came days after Ashtiani's son said last week that an Iranian judge had sentenced his mother to an additional punishment of 99 lashes after a British newspaper published a photograph of a woman without a traditional head covering, claiming that it was Ashtiani.

Read more: http://www.rttnews.com/Content/GeneralNews.aspx?Id=1410591&SM=1

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Lawyer says Iranian woman could be stoned soon

By NASSER KARIMI (AP) – 37 minutes ago

TEHRAN, Iran — The lawyer for an Iranian woman sentenced to be stoned on an adultery conviction said Monday that he and her children are worried the delayed execution could be carried out soon with the end of a moratorium on death sentences for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

In an unusual turn in the case, the lawyer also confirmed that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was lashed 99 times last week in a separate punishment meted out because a British newspaper ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as her. Under Iran's clerical rule, women must cover their hair in public.

With the end of Ramadan this week, the mother of two could be executed "any moment," said her lawyer, Javid Houtan Kian.

The sentence was put on hold in July after an international outcry over the brutality of the punishment, and it is now being reviewed by Iran's supreme court.

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