Iran hangs member of Sunni rebel group
Updated: Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Photographer: WashingtonTV
Executions
15:30GMT—10:30AM/EST
Washington, 3 November (WashingtonTV)—Iran has executed a convicted member of the Sunni rebel group, Jondollah, a senior police official told the Fars news agency on Tuesday.
“Abdolhamid Rigi, a member of Abdolmalek Rigi’s terrorist grouplet, was hanged on Monday morning in the central prison in Zahedan [the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan Province],” the provincial police commander, Gholamali Nekoui, said.
Rigi had been convicted of various charges, including kidnapping, cooperating with Jondollah and moharebeh [waging war against God], which is punishable by death under Iran’s Islamic law.
Nekoui said that the man executed yesterday was not the brother of Jondollah leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, who has a brother of the same name, Abdolhamid Rigi, on death row in Iran.
Jondollah claimed responsibility for the 18 October suicide attack in Sistan-Baluchestan province, which killed at least 42 people, including 15 members of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.
In July, 13 members of the group were hanged in a mass prison execution in Iran.
The latest hanging brings to at least 243 the number of people executed in Iran so far this year, according to an AFP count.
Amnesty International said that Iran executed at least 346 people in 2008, second only to China, although Iran’s population is 18 times smaller.
Sources: Fars news agency, Agence France-Presse, Amnesty International website
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