SUPREME COURT OF IRAN OVERTURNS MURDER CONVICTIONS FOR KILLINGS OF "MORALLY CORRUPT"

Nazila Fathi of The New York Times has a story today on the overturning by the Iranian Supreme Court of the murder convictions of six Iranians who had been found guilty of killing five people whom they found "morally corrupt." Iranian lawyers complained loudly against the decision:

"“The psychological consequences of this case in the city have been great, and a lot of people have lost their confidence in the judicial system,” Nemat Ahmadi, a lawyer associated with the case, said in a telephone interview. . . "

"“The roots of the problems are in our laws,” said Mohammad Seifzadeh, a lawyer and a member of the Association for Defenders of Human Rights in Tehran. “Such cases happen as long as we have laws that allow the killer to decide whether the victim is corrupt or not. Ironically, such laws show that the establishment is not capable of bringing justice, and so it leaves it to ordinary people to do it.”"

Fathi writes, "Iran’s Islamic penal code, which is a parallel system to its civic code, says murder charges can be dropped if the accused can prove the killing was carried out because the victim was morally corrupt."