“Confessions of Prisoners not Valid”

The Financial Times reports that Grand Ayatollah Hossein Vahid Khorasani has told his students that the confessions of prisoners are not valid in courts of law. “Confessions of prisoners have no validity, and if a judge uses confessions for issuing verdicts that judge is no longer qualified,” he said. This stance is a direct challenge to both the Supreme Leader and the judiciary. In the past years, the judiciary has meted out harsh sentences and even execution orders for prisoners who have confessed under threat and torture.