Four Iranian men found guilty of a series of kidnappings...

Four Iranian men found guilty of a series of kidnappings and rapes were sentenced to execution by stoning, the conservative Qods newspaper said.
The four were members of a gang who abducted and raped an undisclosed number of women and girls in the north-eastern city of Mashhad.
Nine members of the gang had already been executed by hanging, one of them publicly.
After a campaign by pro-reform MPs and pressure from the European Union, Iran's judiciary announced at the end of 2002 that it was suspending executions by stoning.
The hardline-run judiciary said it had ordered judges to issue alternative punishments to stoning, without saying what other punishments could be ordered.