The two were found guilty of adultery -- a capital crime in Islamic Iran --
after the husband of one sister presented video evidence showing them in the
company of other men while he was away.
"Branch 23 of the supreme court has confirmed the stoning sentence," said their
lawyer, Jabbar Solati.
The penal court of Tehran province had already sentenced the sisters identified
only as Zohreh, 27, and Azar (no age given) to stoning, the daily said.
Solati explained that the two sisters had initially been tried for "illegal
relations" and received 99 lashes. However in a second trial they were
convicted of "adultery."
The pair admitted they were in the video presented by the husband but argued
that there was no adultery as none of the footage showed them engaged in a
sexual act with other men.
"There is no legal evidence whereby the judge could have the knowledge for
issuing a stoning sentence," Solati said, adding that he had appealed to the
state prosecutor.
"The two sisters have been tried twice for one crime," Solati protested.
Under Iran's Islamic law adultery is theoretically punishable by stoning,
although in late 2002 judiciary head Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi issued
a writ suspending such executions.
However in July 2007, Jafar Kiani was stoned to death for adultery in a village
in the northwestern province of Qazvin in a rare execution by stoning that
provoked a wave of international outrage.
Capital offences in Iran include murder, rape, armed robbery, serious drug
trafficking and adultery. Iran currently makes more use of the death penalty --
almost always by hanging -- than any other country apart from China.
Zohreh's husband -- who accused his wife and her sister in January 2007 of
having extra-marital affairs -- had planted a camera in his house in a bid to
catch them in the act.
"She did not treat me well and her actions made me feel she did not want to
live with me any more," said the husband, who was not named.
"To make sure I planted a camera in the house... When I watched the tape two
days after, I found out that she and her sister brought over men after I left
and had relationships with them," he said.
Zohreh said she had an edgy relationship with her husband because of the strict
limits he imposed on her life.
"I was a teacher and loved my job but my husband did not let me work... he was
always suspicious of me and thought our differences were because I had an
affair," she was quoted as saying by the daily.
"I do not approve the confessions that I made in the investigation phase and I
deny what I said," she said.
Etemad reported that the husband of the other sister, Azar, had not filed any
complaint against her.
