Lawyer in Iran Stoning Case Reported Missing
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The lawyer representing an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery vanished over the weekend after he faced questioning in the case.
Mohammed Mostafaei spent four hours Saturday being interrogated at Iran's notorious Evin prison. But later that day, he had disappeared.
After agents searched Mostafaei's house to no avail, they reportedly arrested his wife and brother-in-law for trying to help her husband avoid arrest.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Mostafaei took up the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani a year ago after her 2006 conviction of an "illicit relationship." She has maintained that her confession was made under duress.
She has already received 99 lashes and spent five years in prison.
"It's deeply worrying that the Iranian authorities now appear to be targeting Sakineh's lawyer," Tim Hancock, the U.K. campaigns director of Amnesty International told the Times of London. "Mohammed Mostafaei is a lawyer doing his job, trying to defend his client. He should be left alone to practice the law, not subjected to harassment and intimidation."
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