Lawyer for Iran pastor expects verdict on Saturday

Yusef Nadarkhani

TEHRAN, Oct 6, 2011 (AFP) - The lawyer for Yusef Nadarkhani, an Iranian pastor facing possible capital punishment for apostasy, said a verdict was expected on Saturday and denied rumours that his client had been handed a death sentence.

“I am waiting for a verdict from Saturday,” Nadarkhani's lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah told AFP on Thursday, while denying some rumours circulating the web about the outcome of the case.

Nadarkhani, now 32, converted from Islam to Christianity at the age of 19 and became pastor of a small evangelical community called the Church of Iran.

He was arrested in October 2009 and condemned to death for apostasy under Islamic sharia law, which allows for such verdicts to be overturned if the convicted person “repents” and renounces his conversion.

After his conviction was upheld by an appeals court in Gilan province in September 2010, Nadarkhani turned to the supreme court.

In July, the supreme court overturned the death sentence and sent the case back to the court in his hometown of Rasht, in Gilan province.

Several Western countries have condemned the death sentence against Nadarkhani and called for his release, including the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Poland, current chair of the European Union.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has also urged Iran to free Nadarkhani and “respect its international human rights commitments.”On September 30, deputy governor general of the northern province of Gilan said Nadarkhani should not face the death penalty for apostasy, while referring for the first time to “security crimes” allegedly committed by the pastor whom he labeled as “Zionist”.

However, Dadkhah has stressed that the trial of the pastor in court in Rasht focused only on the charge of apostasy, and no other Iranian officials have so far spoken publicly about the Nadarkhani's case.

The remarks came one day after the pastor's lawyer told AFP he was optimistic that his client had “convinced” the court and would be freed despite refusing to repent.

Source: Times Online, October 6, 2011

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