Assailant guns down 2 judges tied to 1988 mass executions in Tehran

A man fatally shot two prominent hard-line judges in Iran’s capital Tehran on Saturday, officials said, both of whom allegedly took part in the mass execution of dissidents in 1988.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the shootings of the judges, clerics Mohammad Mogheiseh and Ali Razini.

However, Razini’s involvement in the 1988 executions had likely made him a target in the past, including an assassination attempt in 1999.

Their killings, a rare attack targeting the judiciary, also come as Iran faces economic turmoil, the mauling of its West Asian allies by Israel, and the return of Donald Trump to the White House on Monday.

Both clerics served on Iran’s Supreme Court, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

A bodyguard for one of the judges was also wounded in the attack at the Palace of Justice in Tehran, which also serves as the headquarters of the country’s judiciary and typically has tight security.

The attacker, who was armed with a handgun, killed himself, IRNA said.

“According to initial investigations, the person in question did not have a case in the Supreme Court, nor was he a client of the branches of the court,” the judiciary’s Mizan news agency said.

“Currently, investigations have been launched to identify and arrest the perpetrators of this terrorist act.”

Asghar Jahangir, a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, separately told Iranian state television that the shooter had been an “infiltrator”, suggesting he had worked at the courthouse where the killings took place.

Razini had been targeted previously. In January 1999, attackers on motorcycles hurled an explosive at his vehicle, wounding him as he left work as the head of the judiciary in Tehran.

Mogheiseh had been under sanctions from the US Treasury since 2019. At the time, the Treasury described him as having “overseen countless unfair trials, during which charges went unsubstantiated and evidence was disregarded”.