Iran’s Top Leader Pardons Prisoners, Including Foreigners

A number of countries, including Iran, have released prisoners because of the coronavirus. AFP
A number of countries, including Iran, have released prisoners because of the coronavirus. AFP
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Iran’s Top Leader Pardons Prisoners, Including Foreigners

A number of countries, including Iran, have released prisoners because of the coronavirus. AFP
A number of countries, including Iran, have released prisoners because of the coronavirus. AFP

Iran’s top leader has pardoned thousands of prisoners including foreigners and people accused of anti-state crimes, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Friday, according to The AP.

IRNA reported that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei agreed to pardon and commute the sentences of 2,887 prisoners following a proposal from judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeh.

The death sentences of 59 people were commuted to imprisonment, it said.

Those pardoned included 39 people who were convicted of anti-state crimes and 40 foreign nationals, it said.

The report did not elaborate further.

Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, pardons prisoners to mark certain occasions, including the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, which is Saturday.



Iran Denies Targeting Ex-US officials

25 September 2024, US, Cherokee: Former US president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally inside the Mosack Group manufacturing warehouse in Mint Hill. Photo: Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez/TNS via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
25 September 2024, US, Cherokee: Former US president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally inside the Mosack Group manufacturing warehouse in Mint Hill. Photo: Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez/TNS via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
TT

Iran Denies Targeting Ex-US officials

25 September 2024, US, Cherokee: Former US president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally inside the Mosack Group manufacturing warehouse in Mint Hill. Photo: Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez/TNS via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
25 September 2024, US, Cherokee: Former US president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally inside the Mosack Group manufacturing warehouse in Mint Hill. Photo: Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez/TNS via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Iran said on Thursday that accusations it had targeted former US officials were baseless, after former US president Donald Trump implicated Iran, without offering evidence, in assassination attempts against him.
"It is obvious that such accusations are just a part of creating the election atmosphere in the US...., and not even worth a response," Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said in a statement.
Trump, the Republican candidate to return to the presidency, said on Wednesday Iran may have been behind recent attempts to assassinate him and suggested that if he were president and another country threatened a US presidential candidate, it risked being "blown to smithereens.”
"There have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of, and they may or may not involve, but possibly do, Iran, but I don’t really know," Trump said at an event a pipe-fittings plant in Mint Hill, North Carolina.
Trump made his remarks after US intelligence officials briefed him a day earlier on "real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him," according to his campaign.
Federal authorities are probing assassination attempts targeting Trump at his Florida golf course in mid-September and at a rally in Pennsylvania in July. There has been no public suggestion by law enforcement agencies of involvement by Iran or any other foreign power in either incident.