An Iranian court for the first time granted the family...

An Iranian court for the first time granted the family of a murdered Christian man the same "blood money", or compensation, as that of a Muslim, the official news agency IRNA reported.
The ruling was part of moves to give Iran's non-Muslim minorities the same right as Muslims to have killers pay their victims' families to avoid execution.
The agency said the court in a south Tehran suburb granted the family of Christian pastor Haik Hovsepian-Mehr 150 million rials ($18,750).
It said the blood money for a non-Muslim man had earlier been one-twelfth that of a Muslim under Iran's Islamic laws.
Judiciary head Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi recently asked courts to pass equal judgements in such cases and the parliament is to debate a formal legal change.
Hovsepian-Mehr, a Protestant pastor, was killed under mysterious circumstances in 1994.
Authorities blamed an exiled opposition group for his killing. Western human rights groups said the murder might have been part of alleged extra-judicial killings of dissidents.
IRNA said the blood money was to be paid from public funds, which is usual in unresolved killings. ($1=8,000 rials).