Most of Case Against Journalist Is Dropped

An appeals court upheld only one of four charges that the hard-line judiciary brought against Iran’s leading investigative journalist, sharply reducing his sentence to six months, state-run media reported.

Akbar Ganji was originally sentenced to 10 years in prison and five years in internal exile after he published a series of articles suggesting that senior Iranian hard-liners had ordered the killings of dissident intellectuals and writers.

He has been in jail for more than a year, and the appeals court verdict means he will soon be released, his lawyer said.