Iran's supreme court has overturned the death sentences...

Iran's supreme court has overturned the death sentences of six men convicted of Islamist vigilante murders (see 'The death penalty for violent crimes' May 11, 2003).
"The supreme court has annulled the Kerman death sentences for serial killers and returned the case to the Kerman judiciary to be reviewed again," lawyer Jafar Yazdi, representing one of the victims' families, told the Etemad newspaper. In his verdict the judge said that those convicted were "religious people" and that the original verdict of the Kerman criminal court was therefore invalid, Yazdi said.
The six, convicted of a series of murders to uphold Islamic morality in the south-eastern city of Kerman, were members of the hard-line Islamic Basij militia who decided "to kill their victims to fight against moral corruption, promote virtue and eliminate vice," media reports said in May at the time of the convictions.
The killers, aged between 19 and 22, reportedly confessed to killing some of their victims by tying them up and throwing them into swimming pools, while others were stoned to death.
The supreme court also considered that the men had confessed under pressure during interrogation, Yazdi said.