An Iranian court has sentenced popular singer Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, to de@th after he was convicted of blasphemy.
“The Supreme Court accepted the prosecutor’s objection” to a previous five-year jail term on offences including blasphemy, reformist newspaper Etemad reported online.
It said “the case was reopened, and this time the defendant was sentenced to death for insulting the prophet”, referring to Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.
The report added that the verdict was not final and can still be appealed.
The 37-year-old underground musician had been living in Istanbul since 2018 before Turkish police handed him over to Iran in December 2023.
He has been in detention in Iran since then.
Tataloo had also been sentenced to 10 years for promoting “prostitution” and in other cases was charged with disseminating “propaganda” against the Islamic republic and publishing “obscene content”.
Tataloo previously supported President Ibrahim Raisi during the 2017 election campaign. He also publicly expressed his backing for the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even performing a song called ‘Nuclear Energy’.