An Iranian judge who reconfirmed a controversial death...

An Iranian judge who reconfirmed a controversial death sentence against dissident Hashem Aghajari ignored objections to the original sentence made by the Supreme Court, newspapers quoted his lawyer as saying.
Saleh Nikbakht complained that the judge in the western city of Hamadan, who handed down the original death sentence against Aghajari then reconfirmed it, failed to "clear any points that were signalled as shortcomings by the Supreme Court."
He added: "the judge has issued the ruling without clearing up those deficiencies in line with the orders of the State Supreme Court, and this amounts to a ruling against the Supreme Court."
Iran's top judicial authorities were thought to be anxious to avoid a repetition of the protests at home and abroad that followed the original death sentence on Aghajari, a disabled war veteran and university teacher, in November 2002.
A court in Hamedan found that Aghajari had committed blasphemy in a speech earlier in the year criticizing the power of the dominant Shiite clergy and that, in line with Islamic and Iranian law, he deserved to die.
The speech hit at the very core of Iran's 25-year-old Islamic regime, calling for a reformation in the state religion and asserting that Muslims were not "monkeys" and "should not blindly follow" religious leaders.
For powerful conservative hardliners, those comments were seen as a frontal assault on the Shiite doctrine of emulation and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's status as supreme guide. Aghajari was also sentenced to eight years in jail.
The term was later commuted to four years before being scrapped on April 14, but he is still being held in Tehran's Evin prison.
Following demonstrations by students and protests by reformists in the government over the death sentence, Khamenei demanded it be reviewed. In January 2003, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial.
Judicial officials said last week that the new Hamedan verdict was not final and would again be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
Aghajari persists in his refusal to appeal, letting the judiciary regulate a problem which he says was created by them.
However, Nikbakht said that, if his client does not change his opinion, he will try "as a lawyer to persuade him and will use all the means at his disposal to save his skin."