Prominent Iranian Dissident Released From Jail

7 February 2005 -- Prominent Iranian dissident cleric Hassan Yusefi-Eshkevari was today reported to have been released from jail after serving four years of a seven-year prison sentence.

Yusefi-Eshkevari was arrested in 2000 after attending a controversial conference in Berlin on Iran's future.

He was originally defrocked and branded an apostate, a capital offense in Iran, but was later sentenced to seven years' imprisonment after being found guilty of insulting religious sanctities and spreading lies.

(AFP)