TEHRAN -- An unseated Iranian judge has been sentenced to 10 years in jail and barred from public office for life after being indicted on charges of sexually molesting underage girls.

"Kazem Montazeri Moqaddam, former judge with the Revolutionary Court in Karaj, 40 kilometers west of Tehran, has also been found guilty of bribery, illegal detention and abusing his position.

Although 15 others were implicated with the disgraced judge's activities, it is not known what punishments the accomplices were given.

The case which shocked the country centered around the abuse of girls staying at a guidance home for troubled youths in Karaj.

Mohammad Mahin Khaki, Manager of the home called the 'Center of Islamic Orientation', has been slapped with one year in jail and payment of an unspecified cash fine.

The home was created four years ago, without government approval, to house dozens of girls between the ages of 12 and 18 who had run away from home or had trouble with the law.

Evidently the girls were first brought in front of the judge who seems to have ordered their confinement in the center he had created himself with the help of his accomplices. The young girls were mistreated, mishandled and encouraged to partake in immoral acts.

Although there are many unanswered questions remaining about the case, the sheer severity of the judge's behavior and his inexcusable actions in perversity and immoral public conduct must surely have merited the most severe sentence that the law could pass on him.

Such trials should not be held in camera. The public have the right to be fully informed when an official of this caliber is indicted for indecency and immoral behavior. The case should not be forgotten and a full explanation should be offered to the public.

On December, Judiciary Head Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi said more than three dozen Iranian judges and bailiffs were arrested as part of a bribes and corruption probe into the nation's courts.