West using stoning woman case as 'pressure': Iran

Tehran accused the West of trying to pressurise it over the case of an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning, as a judiciary official said she was in "perfect health" and her case was still being reviewed.

"They (Western nations) have become so shameless that they have turned the case of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, who has committed crime and treason, into a human rights case against our nation," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said.

"It has become a symbol of women's freedom in Western nations and with impudence they want to free her. Thus, they are trying to use this ordinary case as a pressure lever against our nation," the ISNA news agency quoted him as saying.

"The other side is only looking for pretexts against the Islamic establishment and if... we give into their demands they will assert, so there will be nothing left of the revolution and the establishment," state news agency IRNA quoted him as saying.

His comments came after exiled Iranian human rights activist Mina Ahadi triggered a new outcry in the West after voicing fears that Mohammadi-Ashtiani could be executed as early as Wednesday.

Speaking from her base in Germany on Wednesday, however, she acknowledged that the death sentence against mother-of-two had not been carried out.

"Execution time has now passed, so it won't happen today. But the danger remains and it could still happen at any time," Ahadi of the International Committee Against Stoning told AFP.

She said "some countries have been in contact with Iranian government representatives. It is clear that all this attention played a role," she added.

"But the execution has been delayed, not cancelled."

She said that according to sources in Iran, Mohammadi-Ashtiani's name was on a list of people to be executed in the coming days or weeks drawn up by Iran's Supreme Court.

This was communicated by letter to the prison in Tabriz in northwestern Iran, where she is being held, Ahadi added.

But an Iranian judiciary official said Mohammadi-Ashtiani was in "perfect health."

"She is currently in perfect health and is in Tabriz prison. Her case is being reviewed in the court of this province," said Malek Ajdar Sharifi, head of East Azarbaijan province's justice department.

He accused the "Western media" of "poisoning the atmosphere against the Islamic Republic of Iran," state news agency IRNA quoted him as saying.

France too said it was informed by Iran that a final decision on Mohammadi-Ashtiani's execution was still pending.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he spoke to his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki who told him that the "final verdict in the Sakineh Ashtiani case has not been announced by the Iranian judiciary and that news about her possible execution was not based on reality."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague urged Iran to call off the planned execution.

"This is a barbaric punishment and I think it will damage Iran in the eyes of the world," Hague told journalists after meeting Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"I would urge them, even now, to desist from it," Hague said.

Mohammadi-Ashtiani was sentenced to death by two different courts in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz in separate trials in 2006.

The first death sentence, by hanging, for her involvement in the murder of her husband, was commuted to a 10-year jail term by an appeals court in 2007.

But the second, by stoning, was on a charge of adultery levelled over several relationships, notably with the man convicted of her husband's murder, and was upheld by another appeals court the same year.

Mohammadi-Ashtiani's case raised further controversy last month when her son Sajjad Qaderzadeh and lawyer were arrested, along with two German nationals.

The Germans were reportedly interviewing the son when they were arrested. The two were granted consular access late last month.