Two judges of Iran’s Supreme Court were shot dead
Two senior Iranian judges at the country’s Supreme Court have been shot dead, according to state media reports.
Judiciary news website Mizan said judges Ali Razini and Mohammad Moghiseh were killed after an armed man entered a court in the capital Tehran on Saturday morning.
The attacker is said to have killed himself while fleeing the scene. A bodyguard is also reported injured in the attack.
The motive for the attack is unclear, but both judges are said to have played a role in the persecution and killing of opponents of the Islamic regime in the 1980s and 1990s.
In a statement to state news agency IRNA, the judiciary’s media office described the attack as a premeditated murder.
It also said that according to preliminary findings, the attacker was not involved in any of the cases considered by the Supreme Court, and an investigation was launched to identify and arrest others involved in the attack.
Judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir told Iranian state TV that the attacker had entered the court carrying a handgun before opening fire.
One of the judges, Razini, had survived an assassination attempt in 1998.
The second, Mogiseh, was Approved by US in 2019The Treasury Department accused him of “overseeing countless unfair trials during which charges became unfounded and evidence was disregarded”.
At that time he was a judge in the Tehran Revolutionary Court. He was reportedly nominated to the Supreme Court in 2020.
Moghiseh was among seven Iranian judges sanctioned by Canada in 2023 for what the country described as “their role in gross and systematic human rights violations.”
