Tataloo is known for his distinctive tattoos, which cover his entire body [Getty]
Iran’s judiciary said Wednesday there has been “no definitive sentence” against popular singer Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, days after local media reported he had been sentenced to death.
On Sunday, the reformist Etemad newspaper reported that the “Supreme Court accepted the prosecutor’s objection” to a previous five-year jail term against Tataloo on charges of blasphemy.
“The case was reopened, and this time the defendant was sentenced to death for insulting the prophet,” referring to Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, the newspaper said.
It also said the verdict could be appealed.
“No definitive verdict has been issued yet,” said judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir, asked at a press conference on Wednesday about the Tataloo case.
The 37-year-old singer performed as an underground musician and lived 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’s trial began in March 2024, and he was given a 10-year sentence on charges of promoting “prostitution”, disseminating “propaganda” against the Islamic republic, and other “obscene content”.
The heavily tattooed singer, known for combining rap, pop and R&B, was previously courted by conservative politicians including former president Ebrahim Raisi as a way of reaching out to young, liberal-minded Iranians.
In 2015, he published a song in support of Iran’s nuclear programme that later unravelled in 2018 during the first US presidency of Donald Trump.
Tataloo was not the first popular singer to fall foul of the authorities in conservative Iran.
In December, 34-year-old rapper Toomaj Salehi was released from prison after being arrested in October 2022 for publicly backing demonstrations triggered by the death in custody of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.
