Two judges of the Iranian Supreme Court were assassinated on Saturday in their office in Tehran by an armed man who then committed suicide, announced the official agency of the Judicial Authority, Mizan Online. The heads of Branch 39 and 53 of the Supreme Court, Justices Ali Razini and Mohammad Moghisseh, were killed in the Supreme Court compound in the south of the Iranian capital, Mizan Online reported.
Judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir said on television that the assailant had “entered the office of the two judges armed with a pistol” and killed them. No information was provided on the motivations of the perpetrator, but Mizan Online clarified that he “did not have a case before the Supreme Court”. The case, very rare in Iran, “is now the subject of an investigation,” added Mizan, describing the facts as a “terrorist” act.
In 2005, the judge of the revolutionary court of Tehran, Massoud (Hassan) Moghadas, was assassinated in the middle of the street in Tehran.
“An innumerable number of unfair trials”
The two judges killed Saturday were Hodjatoleslam, a mid-ranking Shiite cleric, who had presided over hearings in major trials in recent years. Mohammad Moghisseh, 68, has had a long career in the justice system since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. He was sanctioned in 2019 by the United States for having “supervised a countless number of unfair trials”.
-For his part, Ali Razini, 71, has held important positions within Iran’s judicial and political systems. In 1998, then head of the judiciary in the capital Tehran, he was the target of another assassination attempt, according to Mizan.
In April 2023, an ayatollah member of the Assembly of Experts, the college responsible for appointing, supervising and eventually removing the supreme leader, was shot and killed in northern Iran.
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