Iran dissident sentence revoked

Aghajari became a cause celebre for protesters

Iran's Supreme Court has again quashed a death sentence against dissident academic Hashem Aghajari.

He was sentenced to death for apostasy in 2002 after denouncing Iran's mullahs and calling for "religious renewal".

The sentence sparked the largest student protest for years, and it was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

The sentence was sent back twice to the regional court that first imposed it, but the court simply restated its original verdict both times.

Mr Aghajari, a history professor at a Tehran college, made a speech in August 2002, which was a seen as an attack on the country's Islamic establishment and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Khamenei.

He said that Muslims were not "monkeys" and "should not blindly follow" the clerics.

As well as the death sentence for apostasy and insulting the early imams, he received further sentences of a 10-year ban on teaching, eight years in jail and 74 lashes for lesser offences.

After student protests, Ayatollah Khamenei was forced to step in and order a review of his verdict.

Hashem Aghajari is a war veteran who lost a leg in the 1980-88 war with Iraq. He belongs to a left-wing reformist political group, the Islamic Revolutionary Mujahidin Organisation.