TWO SUPREME COURT “HANGING JUDGES” KILLED IN ARMED ATTACK IN TEHRAN

Sat 18 January 2025:

The Iranian judiciary termed the fatal assault on two high-ranking judges on Saturday morning a “terrorist attack,” saying that an investigation to identify and arrest individuals linked to it is underway.

Two senior Iranian judges were killed after an armed assailant opened fire on them at the Supreme Court in central Tehran on Saturday morning, state media reported.

Both judges — identified as Hojjat al-Islam Razini and Hojjat al-Islam Muslimeen Moghisheh — were killed instantly, while another individual was wounded in the shooting.

Both judges, assassinated in Tehran on January 18, had decades-long histories of handing down death sentences and lengthy prison terms to dissidents in numerous cases.

The cases handled by the two judges, both of the clerical rank of hojjat ol-eslam, involved political dissidents, activists, followers of the Baha’i faith, dissident clerics, and those accused of security-related “crimes.”

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Moghiseh and Razini were targeted at the Supreme Court’s headquarters in central Tehran.

Both Razini and Moghiseh were frequently referred to as “hanging judges” by critics and are primarily remembered for their roles in the 1988 mass executions of political prisoners.

Speaking to the state broadcaster, judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said the incident took place at 10 a.m. local time (0630GMT) when a man carrying a handgun entered the office of the two judges.

He stated that the slain judges were “constantly targeted by the enemies” due to their “crucial roles in the judiciary and their involvement in handling major security-related cases.”

One of them, Razini, had survived an assassination attempt in January 1998 after a magnetic bomb attached to his vehicle exploded. At the time, he was serving as the head of the Tehran judiciary.

Jahangir said that over the past year, the judiciary has “taken extensive measures to identify and prosecute elements associated with Zionist-backed and dissident groups, including spies and terrorist organizations,” hinting at a possible link to Saturday’s attack.

“One clear example of this was the trial of dissident factions, which provoked the anger and resentment of enemies. Today, this hostility resulted in the martyrdom of two esteemed senior judges of the Supreme Court, carried out by an infiltrator armed with a handgun,” he added.

His reference was to the Mujahideen-e-Khalq Organization (MEK), a dissident Iranian group now based in Albania, which Iranian authorities accuse of carrying out terror attacks inside the country.

The attacker committed suicide immediately after carrying out the shooting, however, the hunt for those linked to the attack is ongoing, the judiciary spokesman stated.

According to the preliminary police investigation, the assailant had no pending cases in the Supreme Court and was not a client of the branches headed by the two slain judges.

Earlier, in a statement, the judiciary’s media center described the attack as a “premeditated action.”

Conflicting accounts about courthouse attacker in Tehran

While local media agree that the assailant committed suicide, accounts differ on his identity. Some, including the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency, describe him as a staff member responsible for refreshments at Iran’s Judiciary headquarters, who used a handgun to target the judges.

In contrast, the Judiciary’s official statement refers to him as an infiltrator who “neither had a case at the Supreme Court nor was a visitor to any of its branches.” According to the judiciary spokesperson, the assailant entered the office of two Supreme Court judges between 10:00 AM and 10:45 AM local time, armed with a handgun, and opened fire.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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