An Iranian man arrested on suspicion of killing prostitutes...

An Iranian man arrested on suspicion of killing prostitutes in the northeastern city of Mashhad admitted to sexually molesting his victims prior to strangling them to death.
Sa'id Hana'i, who has admitted to killing 16 women in the city, had initially depicted his crimes as "religious and denied any sexual abuse".
The official news agency IRNA said that Hana'i's case had become a "cause celebre" for conservative papers and quoted the daily Jomhuri-ye Eslami as saying that certain religious figures held the view that Hana'i should not be executed, as demanded under the law "because he did not spill the blood of innocents".