Telegraph: Iranian man to be stoned to death despite moratorium

An Iranian man convicted of adultery is to be stoned to death despite a moratorium being agreed by the judiciary last year

Naghi Ahmadi was sentenced to death by stoning in June last year in the northern city of Sari, after he visited a married woman's home in the night while her husband was away working in another city, the Sarmayeh newspaper reported.
According to Ahmadi's lawyer, the verdict was declared after the woman and his client confessed to their adultery. The report did not explain why the woman was not convicted.

A year ago the judiciary said it would scrap the punishment in Iran's new Islamic penal code.

The outlines of the moratorium have been adopted by the Tehran parliament but are yet to be debated by its members.

In a similar case in February, Abdollah Farivar was hanged in Sari after being sentenced to death by stoning following his conviction for having illicit relations with a teenage girl.

Capital offences in Iran include murder, rape, armed robbery, apostasy, blasphemy, serious drug trafficking, repeated sodomy, adultery, prostitution, treason and espionage.

Under Iran's existing law, adultery is still punishable by stoning, which involves the hurling of stones in public at a partially buried convict. A man is buried up to his waist and a woman up to her shoulders.

Convicts are spared if they can free themselves.

Stoning has drawn international condemnation, with the United Nations and the European Union calling on Iran to abolish the sentence. Iranian human rights campaigners have also urged the Islamic republic to stop the punishment.