Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani NOT freed

The Sydney Morning Herald: Hopes dashed for release of woman who faced stoning:

CONFUSION surrounds the fate of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman whose sentence of death by stoning for adultery in Iran triggered an international outcry.

Campaigners initially claimed victory after photographs from state-run Press TV showed Ms Mohammadi Ashtiani meeting her son Saijad Ghaderzadeh at her home in Osku, in north-west Iran, boosting hopes that she had been suddenly released.

But in the absence of official confirmation their mood soon darkened.

Advertisement: Story continues below A preview of an interview with her broadcast by the station late on Thursday night raised questions about whether she had actually been released from prison, or whether Iranian authorities had merely taken her to her home to collect evidence against her and film a confession.

In a short clip she is seen to say: ''We planned to kill my husband.''

Early yesterday Press TV denied that she had been released and said she had accompanied a production team from the news channel to her house ''to recount details of killing of her husband at the crime scene''.

The Financial Times: Ashtiani pictures inspire false release hopes:

But the hopes were dashed when it became clear that the images, taken from a documentary to be aired on Iranian state television later on Friday, were in fact part of a recreation of the crime scene where she allegedly collaborated with a lover to kill her husband.

“Press TV’s Iran Today programme will shed light on the highways and byways of the murder account with multiple interviews with people and individuals involved in the case,” the television channel said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear whether the authorities intended to revive the murder charge, for which she was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2007, alongside the more serious adultery charges to justify an imminent execution.

Some Iranian officials have indicated that Ms Ashtiani may be spared the stoning sentence, but it is not clear whether this means she will escape the death sentence.

Amnesty International said any televised confessions would make “a mockery of Iran’s legal system”. Clare Bracey, the organisation’s UK death penalty campaigner, said: “Sakineh is currently serving a prison sentence for her alleged role in her husband’s murder. If the authorities are using this ‘confession’ to try to construct a new case against her, for a crime that she’s already been tried and sentenced for, we would condemn this in the strongest terms.”