Karimzadeh, a cartoonist, was arrested after a cartoon of his appeared in the science magazine Farad. It depicted a turban-wearing soccer player with an amputated arm.The image was interpreted by the authorities to be a caricature of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. An Islamic Revolutionary Court originally sentenced him to one year in prison, but he was retried in 1993 by order of the Supreme Court and sentenced to 10 years in prison.