Pastor Saeed's Lawyer Will Appeal Eight-Year Prison Sentence

Naghmeh Abedini, the wife of Iranian-American pastor Saeed Abedini, who has been sentenced to eight years in an Iranian prison for his Christian activities, revealed that there will be an appeal against the sentence, ASSIST News Service reports. "Saeed's lawyer will appeal the court ruling within the given 20 days," she said. "We hope that the high court will overturn the verdict." During the hearing, Abedini's charges were announced as "creating house churches aimed to undermine national security and conspiring to commit crime." His wife earlier stated that when he became a Christian, "the Islamic regime considered him a criminal in his own country."