A moratorium on executions by stoning is only temporary,...

A moratorium on executions by stoning is only temporary, a senior Iranian conservative cleric said, while admitting the practice had hurt Tehran's image abroad. "Stonings have been provisionally suspended due to their negative effects, but this suspension is provisional," Hojatoleslam Mohsen Gharavian, a conservative cleric based in the central theological base of Qom, was quoted as saying by IRNA news agency. With a suspension in place, he stated it was currently up to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to make a final decision on whether executions by stoning, used to punish adulterers, should be totally stopped. "The punishment of stoning, if they are not in the interests of Muslims and Islam, can be suspended for a determined period by the supreme guide," he was further quoted as saying.