05/10/2011
GVF — An Iranian appeals court has approved a two-year jail term for the husband of leading student activist Mahdieh Golroo, reports suggest.
According to the Saham news, a website close to opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi, an earlier two-year prison sentence handed down to Vahid Lalipour has been reduced to a year in prison plus a one-year prison sentence suspended for four years.
The appeals court said the reduced verdict was due to the fact that Lalipour was “young” and that his wife Mahdieh Golroo was already being held in prison.
On 30 October 2010, branch 28 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Moghiseh had previously sentenced Lalipour to two years in prison on charges of “propagating against the system” and “assembly and collusion”. It should be noted that Lalipour’s lawyer was absent during his court proceedings.
According to human rights sources, Mahdieh Golroo and her husband, Vahid Lalipour, were arrested on 2 December 2009. Lalipour did not have any prior political or civil activities and was apparently only arrested to put Golroo under pressure to confess to her charges. He was released on bail three months later, but Golroo was sentenced to two years and four months in prison on charges of “interviewing with foreign media,” “acting against national security,” and “relations and cooperation with the Mojahedin Khalgh Organization (MEK).” Immediately after her trial, in a call to her family, Golroo called the charge of relations with the MEK “ridiculous.”