TEHRAN : A well-known Iranian academic who had a death sentence overturned a decade ago has been convicted and sentenced to a year in jail for spreading propaganda against the regime. No other details of pro-reform activist Hashem Aghajari's offences were mentioned in Iranian media reports of his conviction, published Sunday. Aghajari, a university professor, was convicted of apostasy and given a death sentence in 2003 for declaring Muslims were not ‘monkeys’ who should ‘blindly follow’ their religious leaders.
That sentence was commuted to five years imprisonment in 2004, but he was eventually cleared of all charges in March the following year.