Two supreme court judges shot dead in Tehran

Two prominent Iranian judges were shot dead in an apparent assassination in Iran The highest court in the country.

Ali Rezini and Mohammad Moqissa were killed after an armed man entered the court in the capital, Tehran, on Saturday morning.

The attacker is said to have then committed suicide while fleeing the scene, according to the judiciary’s Mizan news website. A bodyguard was also 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 throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

In a statement to the Islamic Republic of Iran News Agency, the Judicial Authority’s Media Office described the attack as a deliberate assassination.

She also said that according to preliminary findings, the attacker was not involved in any case heard by the Supreme Court, and an investigation has been opened to identify and arrest any other people who may have been involved in the attack.

Judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir told Iranian state television that the attacker entered the court carrying a gun before opening fire.

One of the judges, named Rezini, survived an assassination attempt in 1998. He was one of the most prominent judicial figures in Iran.

The other, measured, was imposed by the United States in 2019The Treasury Department accused him of “overseen countless unfair trials in which charges were not proven and evidence was ignored.”

At that time, he was a judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. He was reportedly appointed to the Supreme Court in 2020.

Moqisseh was also among seven Iranian judges sanctioned by Canada in 2023 over what the country called their “role in gross and systematic human rights violations.”