Iranian pardoned in murder of policeman who tried to rape her

TEHRAN, Iran - A woman who spent seven years on death row in Iran has been spared execution by the family of the police chief she stabbed to death and sexually mutilated for trying to rape her.

The death sentence for Afsaneh Nowrouzi raised an outcry from activists and drew the attention of international groups who sought to overturn the order.

This week, following mediation by the judiciary, the family of Behzad Moghaddam agreed to accept compensation of $62,500 instead of Nowrouzi's execution.

"With the efforts of judiciary officials, family members of the victim were persuaded to give up retribution in this case and signed in a notary public office not to demand death for Nowrouzi in exchange for blood money," said Mohsen Yektan-Khodaei, a top provincial judiciary official.

Nowrouzi, 34, is expected to be released from prison soon.

In 1997, Nowrouzi killed Moghaddam, the police chief on Kish island in the Persian Gulf. Her lawyer said she also cut off his penis and placed it on his chest, a previously confidential detail that will be sure to shock this conservative country - where even talking about sex is taboo.

The court rejected her self-defense claim, convicting her of murder and sentencing her to death. She has been held in a prison in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas ever since.

The case highlighted how difficult it can be for Iranian women to obtain justice against rapists. Unless a woman has very strong evidence, it is difficult to prove she was raped, and sometimes she ends up being charged with adultery or illicit sex, which carry the death penalty - usually hanging or stoning. If she kills the attempted rapist, she can be tried for murder.

If a man is proven to have raped a woman, he also faces execution. In most cases, however, the man is freed by judges who traditionally blame women for attracting sexual advances.

Iran's Supreme Court initially upheld the Nowrouzi's death sentence, but last year, under intense international pressure, judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi ordered a stay of the verdict.

The Supreme Court took a second look at the case and overturned the death sentence due to "technical deficiencies." It ordered a new ruling from the Kish court.

As the court was readdressing the case, judiciary officials intervened with Moghaddam's family.

Yektan-Khodaei, the provincial official, said they urged Moghaddam's mother and his two children to show mercy to Nowrouzi, a mother of two.

But Nowrouzi's lawyer, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, said his client never sought mercy because she believed she had justly defended herself.