Hashem Aghajari, a history professor at a Tehran college, was arrested and sentenced to death by a provincial court after a speech in August 2002, where he said Muslims were not "monkeys" and "should not blindly follow" the Mullahs or clerics. 

Following widespread protests by students and liberals, the Supreme Court had sent the case back to the provincial court for a review and retrial in January 2003.

Earlier this month, the provincial court re-imposed the death sentence, Aghajari's  lawyer Saleh Nikbakht said Monday. Though the provincial judge had failed to clear any of the shortcomings pointed out by the Supreme Court, Aghajari, a war veteran who lost a leg in the 1980-88 war with Iraq, had refused to appeal again, Nikbakht said.  

Apart from the death sentence for apostasy and insulting the early imams, he received further sentences of a 10-year ban on teaching, eight years in jail and 74 lashes for lesser offences, said the BBC.