Iran Rids German of Death Sentence
Saturday, February 20, 1999, TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's highest court
has annulled a death sentence against a German businessman jailed for having
a sexual relationship with an Iranian woman, a judicial official said today.
Judiciary spokesman Saeed Nobari told The Associated Press that the
Supreme Court had quashed 54-year-old Helmut Hofer's sentence ``because
of some problems in the case'' but would not elaborate.
It was not clear when the ruling was issued, and no details were immediately
available on what the next step would be for Hofer, who is in prison in
the capital, Tehran.
Hofer was sentenced to death in January 1998 after being arrested for
having sex with an unmarried 26-year-old medical student.
The Justice Ministry ordered a retrial after Hofer insisted he had
converted to Islam before having sex with the woman. A second court that
tried him sentenced him to death in October. The case automatically went
to the Supreme Court for review.
Iranian law punishes sex between unmarried Muslims with flogging, but
if the man is a non-Muslim he faces the death penalty.
The government-owned daily, Iran, reported today that the high court
had ordered a new trial, but Nobari would not confirm or deny the report.
The Hofer case has strained relations between Germany and Iran, which
had only recently started to mend.
In November, a German official suggested that Hofer could be swapped
for an Iranian secret agent convicted in the 1992 killing of Iranian-Kurdish
dissidents at a Berlin restaurant. The agent is serving a life sentence.
While there is no evidence that the government had influenced the latest
Supreme Court decision, political considerations generally are taken into
account by Iranian courts.
Iran's relations with Germany suffered another blow last week after
a German man was kidnapped and killed during a botched rescue attempt by
security forces.
Heinrich Heimes was traveling in a car when he and his wife were kidnapped.
Also in the car were the German Embassy's military attache and his wife.
According to the German Foreign Ministry, all the hostages except Heimes
managed to escape. Heimes, a former employee of the Deutsche Bank in Tehran,
was killed when police exchanged gunfire with the kidnapper.
Iran's President Mohammad Khatami is expected to visit Germany this
spring in the first official visit to the West by an Iranian president.
He will also go to Italy and France.
Germany's chancellery minister, Bodo Hombach, is expected to travel
to Iran shortly for talks that could include discussions on Hofer.
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