It is widely feared that the cruel punishment soon would be carried out since in similar cases in the past the clerical regime stoned the victims in secrecy.
On March 5, a 30-year-old man from Pars-Abad of Moghan, north Iran, was stoned to death in the Lakan prison in the northern city of Rashat. He was identified as Vali Azad, an employee of the Commerce Department. The mullahs' local judiciary refused to release the body to his family and buried him in an unknown location.
Meanwhile, on January 13, the mullahs’ judiciary spokesman confirmed reports first exposed by the Iranian Resistance about the secret and brutal stoning on December 26, 2008 of three people in the Behesht-Reza cemetery in the holy city of Mashhad.
Prior to this, in a deceptive move, Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, head of the mullahs’ judiciary, had announced a ban on implementing stoning sentences. The regime’s judiciary spokesman explained about this clear inconsistency as well as the rationale for implementing the cruel punishment by stoning, and said, “In view of the judges’ independence, it is possible that as long as the ban on stoning has not become law, the recommendations of the head of the judiciary would not be acted upon.”