An Iranian appeals court has ruled that dissident academic Hashem Aghajari, once condemned to death for blasphemy, does not have to go back to jail and can resume teaching, his lawyer announced yesterday. Aghajari, who lost a leg fighting in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, drew the wrath of powerful hardliners in 2002 when he said in a speech that Muslims were not "monkeys" and "should not blindly follow" religious leaders.A court in the western city of Hamedan initially sentenced the leftist scholar to hang, and even upheld its verdict when a retrial was ordered in the face of angry student protests and international pressure. Last year, the hard-line judiciary held another retrial, and reduced the charges to "insulting religious sanctities", "propagating against the regime" and "spreading false information to disturb the public mind".