By Agence France Presse (AFP)
TEHRAN: An Iranian court has issued a not-guilty verdict for a woman who was originally sentenced to death for killing a man she said tried to rape her, press reports said Monday.
Mahabad Fatehi, 19, known as Nazanin, was cleared by a Tehran provincial court of premeditated murder but still ordered to pay “blood money” of 260 million rials ($30,600) to the victim’s family, the Etemad newspaper reported.
Fatehi, whose case achieved international notoriety when it was taken up by a Canadian beauty queen of Iranian origin, said she stabbed the man in an act of self-defense after he tried to rape her and her 15-year-old niece in March 2005.
In January of 2006, Fatehi was put on trial and sentenced to death by a criminal court, a verdict which the Supreme Court then quashed in an unprecedented move, the report said.
Her case was then referred to Tehran’s provincial court, whose five judges cleared her of the charge with a majority of votes Wednesday, the report said.
“Two bikers held me and my niece, Somayeh, and asked us a dirty favor. I stabbed Yusof and released myself and Somayeh. But Yusof attacked me again and I stabbed him again,” Fatehi said.
She maintained that her only option had been self-defense.
Fatehi explained that she and her niece had gone out with two other men when the attackers trapped them in a remote location outside Tehran.
According to the current Iranian law, which is under modification, a boy can be executed from the age of 15, and a girl from the age of 9. However, the execution is in practice normally carried out when the offender is over 18 years old. – AFP
