An Iranian court has reportedly sentenced controversial pop star Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, also known as Tataloo, to death after he was found guilty of insulting the 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

The newspaper said: “The case was reopened, and this time the defendant was sentenced to death for insulting the Prophet.”

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

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”

Despite his controversial image, Tataloo once engaged with conservative Iranian politicians[…]
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