Iranian pop star Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, has reportedly been sentenced to death for blasphemy.
Reports state that the supreme court accepted the prosecutor’s objection to a previous five-year jail term on offences including blasphemy. The case was reopened, and the defendant was sentenced to death for insulting the Islam’s prophet Muhammad.
Reports also added that the verdict was not final and could still be appealed against.
The heavily tattooed 37-year-old pop star has been in detention in Iran since December 2023 after being extradited from Turkey.
The Iranian singer 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 is known for combining rap, pop and R&B, and was previously instrumental to conservative politicians as a way of reaching out to young, liberal-minded Iranians.
In 2015, he released a song supporting Iran’s nuclear program, which fell apart after the Trump government later withdrew from the deal. In 2017 Tataloo held a televised meeting with the ultra-conservative Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who later died in a helicopter crash.
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