IRAN. JUDICIARY DENIES STONING VERDICT FOR LOVER'S MURDERESS

judiciary denied  newspaper reports that a mother of two who strangled her lover had been sentenced to death by stoning, saying sentence had yet to be passed in the case.
"No such verdict has been issued. The newspaper report is baseless," judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimirad told Reuters.
Even if a stoning sentence was commuted, the 25-year-old woman, named only as Fatemeh, could still face hanging for murder. She would have a chance to appeal.
Newspapers said Fatemeh had been convicted of strangling her lover, 22-year-old Mahmoud Goudarzi, after he refused to end their affair.
"I put the rope around his neck from behind and yanked it tight until he fell to the ground," the official Iran newspaper quoted Fatemeh as telling the judge.
Fatemeh felt remorse over the affair with Goudarzi, a neighbour, and wanted to end it, newspapers reported, but he insisted she should divorce her husband and marry him instead.
"I gave my husband a belt and a knife to punish me but instead he forgave me for the sake of our twins," she said.
She strangled him while her husband, who was convicted of being an accomplice to the crime, wounded him with a knife. Her husband was given an unspecified prison sentence.