Iranian Court Sentences 10 Jews to Jail and Lashings for Spying

July 1 -- A security court in Shiraz, Iran, today sentenced 10 out of 13 Iranian Jews and two Muslims accused of spying for Israel to jail terms of up to 13 years and to whippings.

The remaining defendants, three Jews and two Muslims, were acquitted in a trial which stirred worldwide concern over its fairness.

Israel, which denied the accused were its agents, protested theverdicts and sentences, as did Jewish groups in the United States.

In Washington, President Clinton said he was deeply concerned bythe convictions and noted that the United States Human RightsCommission has denounced the judicial process by which the 13Iranian Jews were tried as “seriously flawed.”

But there also was relief that no death penalties were pronounced, especially among the approximately 30,000 Iranian Jews who remain inthe Islamic republic of Iran. Before the verdict, Iran’s attorney general, Ayatollah Morteza Moqtadei, had warned that capital sentences might be imposed.

Nevertheless, relatives of the accused — who arrived at the courthouse inShiraz on foot because of the Jewish Sabbath — howled in anguish at the verdicts.One family member fainted.

A lawyer for the defendant who drew the stiffest penalty, 13 years inprison, called the sentence “far too severe,” and said he would appeal.

Said to Visit Friends, Relatives

Informants in Tehran said some of the convicted Jews, mostly office or shop clerks and schoolteachers, had apparently visited relatives and friends during trips to Israel.

Israeli authorities repeatedly denied that the accused had spied for Israel. Before the verdict, Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy told the Israeli Army radio, “They are on trial only because they are Jewish and the purpose of the trial is to satisfy extreme elements in Iran involved in an internal war” between moderates and extremists.

Head defense attorney Ismail Nasseri repeatedly protested that the televised confessions of eight of the accused had no legal value, and that the prosecutor — who doubled as judge in a closed trial without jury — had been unable to find real evidence to support the charges or the confessions. Some of the defendants contradicted one another in testimony, he noted.