Pastor Saeed Abedini sentenced to community service for violating wife's restraining order

Pastor Saeed Abedini, who was imprisoned for three-and-a-half years in Iran for evangelizing, has been sentenced to work four days of community service for violating the restraining order filed by his estranged wife, Naghmeh.

Abedini, who was released along with five American prisoners in mid-January last year, pleaded guilty on Monday in Ada County Magistrate Court for violating the restraining order.

Magistrate Daniel Steckel handed down a 180-day jail sentence but suspended all but five days, Idaho Statesman reported. Abedini was given credit for the one day he spent in the Ada County Jail after his arrest on Aug. 31. He was placed on a two-year unsupervised provision, and he was fined $1,000, with $500 suspended.

The pastor was also ordered to stay at least 300 yards away from Naghmeh's home in West Boise. He was told that he may only contact her through text or email for matters concerning their children. The judge obligated the couple to have a third person who would arrange to bring the children from one parent to the other.

Naghmeh campaigned tirelessly for Abedini's release, but she filed for legal separation on the same day he arrived back in Boise. She had stated that Abedini had been emotionally and physically abusive toward her during their marriage.

In November 2015, two months before her husband's release from prison, she announced that she will be suspending her public advocacy for her husband due to the abuse she experienced.

"I love my husband, but as some might understand, there are times when love must stop enabling something that has become a growing cancer. We cannot go on the way it has been. I hope and pray our marriage can be healed," she said at the time.

In 2007, Abedini received a suspended 90-day jail sentence and was placed on one-year probation after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic assault. Court documents revealed that he shoved his wife several times during an argument at their home.

Last October, Abedini announced that he had filed divorce from Naghmeh, saying it's the "only path toward healing."

"There are no words to describe the ongoing effect of the trauma I experienced and my family has experienced both during and in the aftermath of my imprisonment. We are different people, and we are hurting people. It pains me to say, but I have decided the only path toward healing is apart, and not together," the pastor said, according to The Christian Post.