YNOT – A legal resident of Canada who returned to his native Iran to care for his ailing father has been sentenced to die for the crime of operating a porn site based in Canada.

Saeed Malekpour, 35, moved to Canada in 2004 and returned to Iran in 2008. He was sentenced Dec. 4 and is appealing.

“After 40 days & [sic] nights waiting, the sentence was issued yesterday. Saeed has been sentenced to DEATH. Judge Mogheise said to Saeed’s lawyer that, ‘IT WAS NOT MY DECISION, Revolutionary guards (Vezarat) [have] determined the sentence,’” according to a [url=http://peoplewithoutnation.wordpress.com/]site[url] established to generate international support for Malekpour.

Malekpour’s supporters contend he worked as a freelance website developer and programmer and that a program he created may have been used to upload images to adult websites, but he never operated a porn site of his own. His wife corroborated that testimony in an interview with UPI, during which she also indicated Malekpour’s online profile may have been compromised by porn-site operators in order to hide their own tracks. According to the Montreal Gazette, Malekpour claimed he was tortured until he made a false confession to Iranian authorities.

The BBC noted the Canadian government is “deeply concerned” about the conviction. The Canadian Foreign Ministry called the death sentence “highly questionable.”