courtesy of AFP

An Iranian woman sentenced to death for adultery might be spared from a torturous execution, according to some reports released Thursday. 

The AP says "Iran's Council of Human Rights has helped a lot to reduce her sentence and we think there is a good chance that her life could be saved."

A European human rights group announced earlier that the woman had been freed, but then backed down, saying that the report of the release has not been confirmed by Iranian officials.

The woman, 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, was convicted of having intimate relations with two men since the death of her husband. Adultery is the only crime n Iran that carries the death penalty by stoning.

The case has seriously damaged relations between Iran and the West, but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the stoning sentence was made up by Western media.

In Iran, women are stoned for adultery by being wrapped in a tarp and buried in a pit up to their necks. Then bystanders, including the sentencing judge and witnesses, throw grapefruit-sized rocks at their heads until they are dead. The only way a woman can escape such a sentence is by scrambling out of the pit where she is buried with her hands tied behind her back.