German facing death sentence ordered released on bail
in Iran: lawyer
TEHRAN, April 8 (AFP) - German businessman Helmut Hofer, sentenced
to death in Tehran for having sexual relations with an Iranian woman, is
to be released pending a final decision in his case, his lawyers said Thursday.
"Mr. Hofer appeared in court Thursday, and the court agreed to
the attorney's request to release him provisionally," Hofer's lawyer
Houchang Ghahari said, stressing that Hofer "has not yet been freed."
"We will pay bail on Saturday or Sunday to get him released,"
he said, adding that the case was finally "coming to an end."
"Hofer has cheated death," Ghahari said.
The 57-year-old businessman could be deported after his release, a
common result for cases in Iran involving foreigners. He has already served
more than two years in prison.
But a spokesman for the German foreign ministry in Bonn reacted cautiously
to the statement, stressing that Hofer's release was conditional and that
he could yet be brought back for trial.
For the time being, the court has only agreed to the defence attorney's
request to release him provisionally, he said, adding that the ministry
was trying to obtain official confirmation.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's chief of staff Bodo Hombach is to travel
"to the region" next weekend, the government's press service
said. It was not clear whether Hombach would visit Iran.
Schroeder asked Hombach in November to help negotiate the release of
Hofer, who was sentenced to death by a Tehran court in January 1998 for
violating an Iranian law banning sexual relations publicly that the woman
confessed and was flogged but gave no details.
He said early last month that the "final verdict" would be
announced in four to six weeks time.
The German daily Die Welt reported in February that Hofer found "shameful
and sad" the way he had been treated by both nations.
The paper quoted a January 26 letter Hofer sent from his prison to
his friend John Schneider-Merck, who said the woman had approached him
for "conversations in English."
The politically sensitive case has strained already touchy relations
between Iran and Germany, its largest European trading partner.
In February a German businessman was seized from a diplomatic car and
shot dead by a lone gunman who had already killed three other people, according
to official accounts.
But the English-language Iran News paper cast doubt on the official
version of events, suggesting the killing was part of a campaign to sabotage
relations with Germany.
"A review of Iran-German relations in the past few years reveals
that invisible hands are at work to prevent the expansion of ties between
Bonn and Tehran," it said in an editorial.
Relations have been tense since Iranian national Kazem Darabi was sentenced
to life in prison in Germany in 1997 for involvement in the murders of
Kurdish political opponents in Berlin in 1992.
The German court implicated the Iranian regime in the killings.
Links
