Iran’s Supreme Court annuls the death penalty for spiritual leader Mohammad Ali Taheri and refers his case back to the court that handed down the sentence, his lawyer says.
“I went to court today and was told that the verdict has been canceled,” Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabayi says, quoted by Fars news agency.
The Revolutionary Court “has to examine the case again and issue a new verdict.”
Taheri, who has no religious training, founded a spiritual movement and practiced alternative medicine, following what he presented as spiritual messages.
After a brief arrest in 2010, he was rearrested in May 2011 and held in solitary confinement. He was sentenced to death in June for “insulting Islamic sanctities” and “corruption on earth.”
In August, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, called for the immediate release of Taheri.
— AFP
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