Iran Overturns German Man’s Death Sentence

Iran’s high court has overturned the death sentence handed to German businessman Helmut Hofer for having illicit sex with an Iranian Muslim woman and ordered a retrial, a judiciary official said Saturday.

“Iran’s Supreme Court has quashed the earlier court ruling against German businessman Helmut Hofer and sent his case to the Tehran Justice Department for a retrial,” said judiciary spokesman Fotovat Nassiri Savadkuhi, quoted by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency, or IRNA.

IRNA’s newspaper reported earlier that the Supreme Court had overturned the death sentence because “there was not enough evidence” and ordered a new trial.

In Bonn, a German Foreign Ministry spokesman said his government was aware of the decision.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman said, however, that it was too early to assess what this will mean for Hofer because German officials had not read the court’s verdict and therefore did not know the reasons given for the decision.

The spokesman said the high court had ordered a retrial in a court directly below it in Iran’s judicial hierarchy. It was not clear when this will take place.

German Chancellery Minister Bodo Hombach was quoted by Bild am Sonntag newspaper as welcoming the decision.

“That could speed a long-overdue improvement in relations between Iran and Germany,” he said, in remarks due to be published in today’s editions.

Hofer was sentenced to death last year after being found guilty of having sex with a 27-year-old unmarried medical student. The ruling was upheld by an appeals court in October.

Under Iran’s Islamic laws, a non-Muslim man can face execution if convicted of having sex out of wedlock with a Muslim woman. The woman was sentenced to 99 lashes, a ruling also on appeal.

Hofer, who was born in 1941, has said he converted to Islam some years ago when he married a Turkish national. The businessman from Hamburg is now divorced.