Two veteran Iranian Supreme Court judges known for handling high-profile cases were shot dead in Tehran, Iran’s capital, by an assailant who later took his own life.
The judiciary’s communications office was quoted by state-affiliated media as saying the attacker had no pending court cases.
Details of the incident remain unclear, but the Iranian judiciary said the attacker killed the two officials in a “planned assassination” inside the courthouse and tried to flee before taking his own life.
A guard was injured in the attack, judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir reported, according to Mizan News Agency.
Judge Mohammad Moghiseh and Judge Ali Razini were veteran magistrates who for decades headed courts involved in trials of protesters, artists and activists.
Moghiseh was sanctioned by the United States in 2019 for overseeing “numerous unfair trials, during which accusations were not proven and evidence was disregarded.” Eight years earlier the European Union took the same measure against him.
In just one case, he sentenced eight Iranian Facebook users to a total of 127 years in prison for anti-regime advertising and insulting religion.
The judge also indicted filmmakers and poets for “propaganda against the state,” the US Treasury Department said.
In another case in 2019, he sentenced prominent Iranian human rights lawyer and women’s rights advocate Nasrin Sotoudeh to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes, according to Amnesty International.
In 1999, Razini survived an assassination attempt after a bomb was attached to his vehicle, Iran’s Fars news agency shared.
Along with former president Ebrahim Raisi, he is accused of being one of the judges involved in the “Death Commission” – an infamous committee that oversaw the prosecution and execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.
This content was originally published in Two judges of Iran’s Supreme Court were shot dead, says the judiciary on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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