There has been no official confirmation yet on reports Thursday from Germany that the Iranian woman on death row might soon be released, dpa reported.
The head of the Cologne-based International Committee against stoning, Mina Ahadi, told the German Press Agency dpa that there have been indications that Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani would soon be released. But the Iranian judiciary has not yet reacted to her remarks.
Mohammad-Ashtiani was arrested in 2006 for adultery which, according to Islamic laws prevailing in Iran, is punishable by death by stoning.
The case sparked international protests and condemnations and both officials and human rights organizations called on Iran to revise the stoning sentence.
According to the Iranian judiciary, it later became clear that she was also involved in the killing of her husband. The adultery charges were for the time being dropped and the main charges shifted to murder.
On Thursday the state-run English-language news network Press TV provided Western news agencies in Tehran with pictures of Mohammadi-Ashtiani and her son Sajad, apparently shot on three days in the first week of December in her house in the town of Osku, the woman's hometown in the north-western Azerbaijan province.
Press TV gave no give details about the pictures, but observers believe that if the date on the pictures was correct, then the woman appeared to have been at least temporarily released from prison.
Press TV, a satellite network mainly established for reaching audiences outside Iran, reportedly either had plans to conduct and interview or has already made an interview with the woman and her son.
Observers said the pictures and interview by Press TV could herald new developments in the woman's case.
At the same time, Iranian state television on Thursday night aired a special programme on the case in which neighbours of the woman confirmed her role in her husband's killing.
The TV programme, titled Raz (Secret), interviewed her former neighbours, apparently in Tabriz, capital of Azerbaijan, who said that she was at least an accomplice in what they called the brutal killing of her husband in 2006.
According to the witnesses and judiciary officials in Tabriz, she first doped the husband before letting her lover kill him.
The TV programme once again accused the West of having availed itself of the case to tarnish the image of the Islamic republic through its media tools.
No official reaction by Iran yet on release of death row woman
There has been no official confirmation yet on reports Thursday from Germany that the Iranian woman on death row might soon be released, dpa reported.
