Attack occurred outside Iran's highest court in a busy area of central Tehran
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.
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.”
