An Iranian court reportedly sentenced controversial pop star Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, also known as Tataloo, to death after he was found guilty of insulting Prophet Muhammad.
“The Supreme Court accepted the prosecutor’s objection” to a prior five-year prison sentence for blasphemy, AFP reported, citing the Iranian newspaper Etemad.
It said “the case was reopened, and this time the defendant was sentenced to death for insulting the prophet”, the newspaper said.
The Iran Front Page also reported that Tehran’s First Criminal Court sentenced Tataloo, 37, to death for insulting the prophet after a retrial, overturning a prior five-year prison sentence.
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The verdict, which followed an appeal and Supreme Court intervention, was not final and could still be challenged by the Supreme Court, according to media reports.
However, Iran International said on Sunday that the country’s judiciary denied reports claiming that Tataloo had been sentenced to death for blasphemy. It said that the initial report, published by the Jame Jam newspaper, was refuted by the judiciary’s media office, which stated that a final verdict has not yet been issued.
The Independent could not verify these claims. Tataloo, an underground musician, was extradited from Istanbul to Iran in December 2023 and has been in detention since.
Known for blending rap, pop, and R&B, he previously faced a 10-year sentence for promoting “prostitution” and was charged with anti-regime propaganda and publishing “obscene content”.
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Despite his controversial image, Tataloo once engaged with conservative Iranian politicians, including a televised meeting with late president Ebrahim Raisi in 2017.
In 2015, he released a song supporting Iran’s nuclear programme, which faced setbacks after the US withdrew from the deal in 2018.
The news of the sentence came as two judges, Ali Razini and Mohammad Moghisseh, known for handling cases on national security and terrorism, were killed in a shooting at Iran’s Supreme Court in Tehran on Saturday, according to the judiciary’s Mizan Online website.
The judiciary reported that the gunman, described as a “terrorist”, entered their room, carried out the attack, and then killed himself. One other person was reportedly injured in the incident.
In 2024, at least 901 people were executed in Iran, marking the highest number in nine years, a six per cent increase from the previous year. This includes about 40 executions in a single week in December, according to UN human rights chief Volker Turk.
“It is deeply disturbing that yet again we see an increase in the number of people subjected to the death penalty in Iran year-on-year. It is high time Iran stemmed this ever-swelling tide of executions,” Mr Turk said.
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