IRAN: DEATH SENTENCE UPHELD FOR MEN ‘LINKED TO UK SPY’

February 6, 2012: Iran's Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for two men - Zaniar Muradi, 25, and Luqman Muradi, 28 - convicted of killing three Sunnis with the help of a British spy, a news agency reported. "The men, members of Komeleh Kurdish terrorist group, shot dead a son of Marivan's Friday prayer leader, along with two of his friends, in July 2009 with the support of the British intelligence service," the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
The Mehr report said the court had found the two guilty of "Moharebeh," an Islamic term meaning "enmity with God," a capital crime that carries the death sentence.
Like neighboring Iraq and Turkey, Iran has a large Kurdish minority, mainly living in the west and northwest. Iran is a mainly Shi'ite Muslim country while most Kurds are Sunni Muslims.
According to Iran's state-run English Press TV, the men told a Revolutionary Court in late 2010 that a British agent had offered them a significant sum of money, British residency permits and other incentives to carry out the assassination in a west Iran city.
When lower courts impose a death sentence, the case goes to the Supreme Court to review the sentence. (Sources: Reuters, 06/02/2012; Daily Telegraph, 14/02/2012)