Prisoner update: Nine-year prison sentence of Laylaz reduced to six after appeal

GVF -- The lawyer representing economist Saeid Laylaz has told the Iranian Labour News Agency that his client's six-year sentence has been approved after appeal.

Laylaz is an economic journalist and had been a fierce critic of Ahmadinejad’s economic policies that have devastated the country.

Laylaz’s lawyer, Seyed Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei told ILNA that the Shahid Beheshti University professor had initially been sentenced to nine years in prison for charges of insulting the leader, disrupting public order, propagating against the regime and gathering as well as acting against the Islamic system. Following appeal, his sentence was reduced to six years.

Tabatabaei said that his client had been in prison since 16 June 2009, just days following the rigged 12 June presidential election and can now apply for a leave now that his sentence has been finalised.