Pregnant woman sentenced to death by a court in Iran

Dec. 1, 2008, 2:56 p.m.

Iran Human Rights, December 1: A pregnant woman and her husband were sentenced to death convicted of drug trafficking, reported the state run news agency ISCA news.

According to the report, the couple identified as "Shahla" (wife) and "Shahram B." are convicted of keeping 800 grams of heroin, and were sentenced to death by the revolutionary court in the town of Roudan, south of Iran.

Under interrogations, they have confessed that poverty was the reason why they wanted to sell drugs, said the report.

The prosecuter of Roudan, Jafar Hamzei told ISCA news:"The court has sentenced them to death according to the law, but we have asked the judiciary to reduce their punishment to life in prison, due to their poverty and bacause they had not succeeded to sell any drugs yet"

"Another reason why we have asked for reduction of the punishment is because the woman is pregnant" he added.