Human Rights Lawyer Acquitted In Iran

Lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani (file photo) (AFP) May 28, 2007 -- Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani has been acquitted on appeal of charges related to espionage, and has been released from jail after serving seven months.

Soltani was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in March 2006 for leaking documents related to Iran's nuclear development program, but was released on bail two months ago.

Soltani is a member of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi's Defenders of Human Rights Center. He has been involved in some of Iran's most high-profile human rights cases, and was recently named to serve alongside Ebadi on the defense team of Haleh Esfandiari, an Iranian-American scholar detained in Iran since early May and accused of subversion.

(AFP)