Tehran: Nine Iranians have died after drinking tainted alcohol at parties in the city of Isfahan since October, a judiciary official said on Sunday.
Alcohol consumption has been banned in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, but liquor is widely available from illegal sources, either smuggled in from abroad or made locally, of varying quality.
"So far, dozens of people have been poisoned because of using home-made and tainted liquors," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Isfahan province's public prosecutor Mohammad Reza Habibi as saying.
Dying from drinking alcohol was "the worst and ugliest death for a Muslim", Fars quoted Habibi as saying.
