Iran's Khamenei pardons, commutes sentences of thousands

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has pardoned or commuted the sentences of thousands of prisoners on the occasion of Muslim festivals, his official website said Wednesday.

In total, it included 2,135 prisoners sentenced by "public, revolutionary, armed forces' and bureaucratic courts", the report said, without giving further details.

Clemency was granted to convicts chosen by the judiciary for the Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Ghadir holidays.

Iran's judiciary began progressively granting detainees furlough in March in a bid to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.

More than 60,000 are now on leave, according to the judiciary's spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili.

Since it first emerged in Iran in late February, the virus has killed more than 17,800 people and infected over 317,400 in the country.