Iran hangs two in public over Shiraz shrine shooting

TEHRAN: 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 highly revered shrine of Shah Cheragh, which left 13 people dead and 30 wounded, was claimed by the 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.

They were identified as Mohammad Ramez Rashidi and Naeem Hashem Qatali, Mizan said, without elaborating.

In March, an Iranian court had sentenced the two men to death after they were 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”.

At the time, Fars chief justice Kazem Moussavi said they were directly involved in the “arming, procurement, logistics and guidance” of the main perpetrator.

Three other defendants in the case were sentenced to prison for five, 15 and 25 years for being members of IS, he said.

One of the attackers, identified by media in Iran as Hamed Badakhshan, died of injuries sustained during his arrest, the authorities said.

The shrine attack came more than a month after protests erupted across Iran over the death in custody of a young Iranian Kurdish woman.

Mahsa Amini, 22, died after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating the country’s dress code for women.

Public executions are relatively rare in Iran with almost all hangings carried out inside prisons.

Iran executes more people annually than any nation other than China, according to rights groups including the London-based Amnesty International.