IRAN. ISLAMIST VIGILANTE SENTENCED TO DEATH

a member of an Islamist vigilante group convicted of a string of murders in Iran was sentenced to death while five other gang members were handed long prison terms.
The gang, aged between 19 and 22, had reportedly confessed to killing some of their five victims by tying them up and throwing them into swimming pools, while others were stoned to death. They were members of the hard-line Islamic Basij militia from the southern city of Kerman who decided "to kill their victims to fight against moral corruption, promote virtue and eliminate vice," media reports said at the time of their convictions. All defendants were first sentenced to death, but the convictions were overturned by the Supreme Court in September 2003 on the grounds that they were "religious people" and their confessions may have been extracted under pressure. Quoted by the student news agency Isna, judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad said one death sentence had been upheld, while the other five defendants were given jail terms of between six and 28 years and ordered to pay blood money to the families of their victims.