Iran Hangs Two In Public Over Shiraz Shooting

Category: World News

Iran hanged two men in public on Saturday over an October attack on a shrine in the southern city of Shiraz that claimed over a dozen lives, the judiciary said.

The October 26 attack on the revered Shiite Muslim shrine of Shah Cheragh, which left 13 people dead and 30 wounded, was claimed by the Sunni Muslim extremist Islamic State (IS) group.

“The death sentences of two of the perpetrators of the Shah Cheragh terrorist attack were carried out in public this morning,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.

The pair were hanged at dawn on a street near the shrine in Shiraz, the capital of Fars province, the official news agency IRNA reported. Mizan identified them as Mohammad Ramez Rashidi and Naeem Hashem Qatali.

Iran had previously said the attack involved people from other countries, including neighbouring Afghanistan, but the nationalities of the executed men were not immediately revealed.

The area of Iran that borders Afghanistan and Pakistan is a hotbed of unrest, and on Saturday four armed assailants killed an Iranian policeman in the Sunni-majority city of Zahedan near the same frontier, state media said.

It was not immediately clear what was behind the attack in the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, a flashpoint for clashes with Sunni extremists as well as drug smugglers and rebels from the Baluchi minority.

Mizan said one of the men executed on Saturday, Rashidi, had confessed to having collaborated with IS to carry out October’s shrine attack.

The two were sentenced to death in March after being convicted of “corruption on earth, armed rebellion and acting against national security”.

They were also charged with membership of IS and “conspiracy against the security of the country”.