Iranian ‘death by stoning’ woman’s son reported missing

TEHRAN - The son of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman who had been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, has reportedly gone missing following the arrest of two alleged German journalists after they tried to interview him.

AOL News quoted a statement published on the semi-official Mehr News website, as saying that Iran’s chief prosecutor, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, called the two detained “foreign tourists” and said they lacked correct media ethics.

The lawyer of the 43-year-old woman, Javid Houtan Kian, is also reported missing. Sources connected to the case said that they have neither returned to their homes on Sunday, nor answered their phones.

Mina Ahadi, an Iranian human rights activist, based in Germany, who said she arranged the interview, has claimed that the Iranian government has arrested the son of Ashtiani and her lawyer, the paper said. The Iranian-born head of the Frankfurt-based International Committee Against Stoning, also said that the arrests occurred Sunday afternoon while she was on the phone in Germany acting as translator during the interview.

The government, however, has not confirmed the arrests or detention of Ashtiani’s son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, or her lawyer.

Ashtiani, a mother of two, was originally convicted in May 2006 after being found guilty of having had an “illicit relationship” with two men following the death of her husband and reportedly received 99 lashes in front of her son.

Later that year, as a result of information that surfaced during the trial of a man accused of murdering her husband, her adultery case was re-opened. Despite retracting a confession she said she had made under duress in August, Ashtiani was convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning. (ANI)