Two senior Iranian judges were shot dead in an apparent assassination at the country’s supreme court.
Ali Razini and Mohammad Moghiseh were assassinated on Saturday morning when an armed man entered the court in Tehran, the capital.
According to the judiciary’s news website, Mizan, the attacker then committed suicide while fleeing the scene. A bodyguard was also injured during the incident.
The motivation for the attack is unknown, however both judges are reported to have participated in the persecution and murder of Islamic regime opponents in the 1980s and 1990s.
In a statement to state news agency IRNA, the judiciary’s media office classified the attack as a premeditated assassination.
It also stated that, based on preliminary findings, the attacker was not involved in any cases before the Supreme Court, and that an inquiry had been begun to identify and arrest any further people who may have been involved in the attack.
Asghar Jahangir, the judiciary’s spokesman, informed Iranian state television that the attacker entered the court with a handgun and opened fire.
One of the judges, Razini, had survived an assassination attempt in 1998. He was one of Iran’s most senior judges.
The other, Moghiseh, was sanctioned by the United States in 2019, with the Treasury Department accusing him of “overseeing countless unfair trials, during which charges went unsubstantiated and evidence was ignored.”
At that time, he was a judge in the Tehran Revolutionary Court. He was reportedly appointed to the Supreme Court in 2020.
Moghiseh was also among seven Iranian judges sanctioned by Canada in 2023 for what the Canadian government described as “their role in gross and systematic human rights violations.”
