Corpun file 15558
News24.com (South Africa)/AFP, 18 April 2005
Patients 'raped and taped'
Tehran -- An Iranian court sentenced a dentist to 99 lashes and nearly 10 years in jail for raping at least 60 patients, many of them sedated, whom he then blackmailed into silence by showing them film of what had happened, media reported on Monday.
One of the victims hired a man to steal the videos but he was caught with the tapes after the dentist, in his thirties and identified only as Kamran, reported he had been burgled.
The thief told police he had been hired by one of the victims who wanted to protect her honour.
The victim said during the inquiry that Kamran had raped her and forced her to keep quiet by threatening to expose the videos to her family.
You are a nice girl
Another victim, raped under anaesthesia, said Kamran later said he had done it as a way to persuade her to marry him: "I have been in love with you since I set eyes on you. You are a nice girl and you wear the (Islamic) scarf properly," he had said.
He had then burned the video in front of her to try to prove his motive.
Kamran admitted to police he had raped at least 60 of his patients but later retracted his confession and said all the women had consented to sex.
He also said at first that he suffered from psychological problems.
"I had regrets every time, but I could not help doing it again," he said, but again later retracted the statement.
The court ordered him to be lashed, jailed him for nine years and nine months, shut down his surgery and banned him from practising as a dentist.
Corpun file 15606
The Persian Journal, 27 April 2005
Iranian student to be flogged and jailed
An Iranian student detained for taking part in anti-regime demonstrations has been sentenced to 18 months behind bars and 76 lashes, his lawyer
reported. The lawyer said that his client would appeal.
The lawyer said an Islamic revolutionary court had found Farab Samimi guilty of "propagating against the regime" and "disturbing public order" for taking part in an illegal gathering on July 9, 2003.
On April 19, press reports said eight other students were given suspended jail terms for insulting President Mohammad Khatami and endangering national security.
Four of those condemned were from the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan and the others were from a university in the northwestern city of Tabriz.
The judiciary, a bastion of Islamic mullah regime, has also reportedly arrested and released Said Habibi, a member of the pro-reform student group the Office to Consolidate Unity.
© Iranian.ws
