An Iranian woman whose sentence of death by stoning for adultery provoked an international outcry could be executed by hanging instead, the country's judicial authorities have indicated. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 44-year-old mother of two, was convicted of conducting an "illicit relationship outside marriage" in 2006 and has since been kept in Tabriz prison in the west of Iran.

Human rights activists have raised serious concerns about a lawyer who fell foul of Iran's Islamic regime for highlighting the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.

Iran has warned that foreign campaigns to free two German journalists detained while covering the case of a woman sentenced to death by stoning could backfire. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday that pressure would have the opposite effect. He urged Germany to avoid politicizing the issue.

Authorities reviewing a death by stoning sentence against an Iranian woman convicted of adultery could still commute the sentence, a senior Iranian judiciary official has said. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was taken from prison late on Saturday to meet journalists to talk about her confession of helping her lover kill her husband. Ashtiani, who has previously appeared on state television, denied that she had been tortured in prison and admitted that she was an accomplice to the murder.