Author: Frances Harrison
Publication: BBC News
Date: April 15, 2007
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6557679.stm
Iran's Supreme Court has acquitted a group
of men charged over a series of gruesome killings in 2002, according to lawyers
for the victims' families.
The vigilantes were not guilty because their
victims were involved in un-Islamic activities, the court found.
The killers said they believed Islam let them
spill the blood of anyone engaged in illicit activities if they issued two
warnings to the victims.
The serial killings took place in 2002 in
the south-eastern city of Kerman.
'Morally corrupt'
The case raises serious questions about vigilantes
in Iran taking justice into their own hands and undermining the rule of law.
Up to 18 people were killed in just one year,
but only five of the murders were tried in court.
According to their confessions, the killers
put some of their victims in pits and stoned them to death. Others were suffocated.
One man was even buried alive while others had their bodies dumped in the
desert to be eaten by wild animals.
The accused, who were all members of an Islamic
paramilitary force, told the court their understanding of the teachings of
one Islamic cleric allowed them to kill immoral people if they had ignored
two warnings to stop their bad behaviour.
But there was no judicial process to determine
the guilt of the victims in these cases.
The group even killed a young couple they
thought were involved in sex outside marriage, but media reports say the couple
were either married or engaged to be married.
Lawyers for the victims' families say the
Supreme Court has five times overturned the verdict of a lower court that
found all the men guilty of murder.
Now the Supreme Court is reported to have
acquitted all the killers of the charge of murder on the grounds that their
victims were all morally corrupt.
Some of the group may, however, face prison
sentences or have to pay financial compensation to their victims' families.
