Defence lawyers said Monday the verdict from a Tehran revolutionary court on Iranian reformists who attended a controversial "un-Islamic" conference in Germany has been postponed.
The court has said the meeting, attended by several allies of President Mohammad Khatami, was aimed at overthrowing the clerical regime, meaning those convicted could be facing long jail terms or worse.
"We were told that we will be summoned to the court very soon to obtain the verdicts," said Ramezan Hajimashhadi, lawyer for one of the main defendants, Khalil Rostam-Khani.
He told AFP that a number of lawyers who appeared at the court Monday morning were told that the ruling, expected on Monday, would not be delivered until Tuesday at the earliest.
The Tehran judiciary said Sunday that 10 people had been convicted and six others cleared of charges.
Conservatives were outraged after state television repeatedly broadcast "un-Islamic" footage from the seminar showing a man disrobing in protest and a woman dancing with bare arms.
The conference, which was disrupted by the Iranian exiled opposition, was held to consider the future of the reform movement after reformists won control of parliament in February's legislative elections.
Among those charged are dissident cleric Hassan Yussefi-Eshkevari, a close Khatami ally accused of apostasy, and journalist Akbar Ganji, who has accused top regime officials of being behind the 1998 assassinations of several dissidents.
The head of the Tehran judiciary said last month that one of the most prominent defendants -- Jamileh Kadivar, wife of former culture minister Ataollah Mohajerani -- would be acquitted -- TEHRAN (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
