Hashem Aghajari refused to appeal his sentence in a...

Hashem Aghajari refused to appeal his sentence in a defiant challenge to the Islamic republic's hardline judiciary, his lawyer said. "Twenty years ago, when I was on the front ... during the Iran-Iraq war, I was already ready to be a martyr. If the head of the judiciary thinks that this verdict is fair, he should apply it. Otherwise they should do the necessary (and cancel the verdict)," Saleh Nikbakht quoted Aghajari as writing in response to his sentence. But the lawyer said that, although his client was "ready to die", he would "continue to try" to make him appeal, a step that would likely see his sentence reduced in a face-saving way out of the crisis.