On April 10, a German citizen Helmut Hofer, a 57-year-old...

On April 10, a German citizen Helmut Hofer, a 57-year-old businessman, was released on bail from an Iranian prison. Clemency was announced on April 4, in a meeting between Head of the Federal Chancellery Bobo Hombach and President Khatami. He was condemned to death in January 1998 for having sex with Vahideh Qassemi, a 26-year-old unmarried Iranian Muslim medical student, but the sentence was annulled, and in February 1999 the Supreme Court ordered a retrial. Hofer's defense team had sought to overturn the conviction on the grounds that he had converted to Islam before the relationship started. Hofer denied he had sex with the woman, who was arrested with him at Tehran airport in September 1997, and sentenced to 100 lashes. Iranian law punishes sex between unmarried Muslims with flogging, but if the man is not Muslim he faces the death penalty. Hofer's death sentence was quashed after concerns that execution of a German national for alleged sex offenses would seriously damage attempts by the reformist Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami, to improve his relations with the West. Hofer was ordered to pay bail of about $165,000.