Iranian officer to serve 3 years for killing blogger

Friday, August 8, 2014

TEHRAN, Iran -- A policeman convicted over the death of a detained blogger in 2012 has been sentenced to three years in jail and another two in internal exile, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported Thursday.

Blogger Sattar Beheshti, a little-known activist, was detained Oct. 30, 2012, and taken to the Evin prison in Tehran the next day, where he was handed over to cyberpolice. He died Nov. 3 and had "signs of wounds" on his body, according to a report released in 2012.

ISNA said the policeman was sentenced to three years in jail, 74 lashes and two years of internal exile in the remote southern town of Borazjan. The prison time was for assaulting Beheshti, and the lashes were for insulting and cursing the blogger.

ISNA quoted Giti Pourfazel, a lawyer hired by Beheshti's mother, as saying the sentence was too light considering the nature of the crime.

"While journalists are sentenced to six years in this country, it's surprising that a murderer is sentenced to three years in jail," the lawyer was quoted by ISNA as saying.

A Section on 08/08/2014