TEHRAN: An Iranian court sentenced two people to death over an October attack on a shrine in the southern city of Shiraz that cost over a dozen lives, the judiciary said Saturday.
The pair were convicted of assisting in “corruption on earth, armed rebellion and acting against national security,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported, citing Kazem Moussavi, the chief justice of Fars province.
Moussavi said they “were directly involved in the arming, procurement, logistics and guidance of the main perpetrator of the terrorist attack” on the Shah Cheragh mausoleum on October 26 that killed 13 people and wounded 30 others.
Three other defendants in the case were sentenced to prison for five, 15 and 25 years for being members of the Daesh group, he said.
The verdicts against the five could be appealed before the supreme court, he added.
The main perpetrator of the attack, identified by media outlets in Iran as Hamed Badakhshan, died of injuries suffered during his arrest, Mizan said.
In November, the Islamic republic said 26 “takfiri terrorists” from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan had been arrested in connection to the attack.
Iran sentences two to death over Shiraz shrine attack
https://arab.news/9e84c
Iran sentences two to death over Shiraz shrine attack
- The pair were convicted of assisting in "corruption on earth, armed rebellion and acting against national security"
- Three other defendants in the case were sentenced to prison for five, 15 and 25 years
Assad forces injured 35 in 2016 chlorine attack: watchdog
- “There are reasonable grounds to believe that one Mi8/17 helicopter of the Syrian Arab Air Force dropped at least one yellow pressurised cylinder,” OPCW said
- The team interviewed dozens of witnesses, analyzed samples and reviewed satellite images
THE HAGUE: Former Syrian president Bashar Assad’s forces deployed chlorine gas in a 2016 attack that injured at least 35 people, the world’s chemical weapons watchdog concluded Thursday.
The October 2016 attack near a field hospital outside the town of Kafr Zeita, in western Syria, was already well-documented but the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for the first time accused Assad’s forces.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that one Mi8/17 helicopter of the Syrian Arab Air Force dropped at least one yellow pressurised cylinder,” the OPCW said in a report.
“Upon impact, the cylinder ruptured and released chlorine gas, which dispersed through the Wadi Al-Aanz valley, injuring 35 named individuals and affecting dozens more,” OPCW investigators concluded.
The team interviewed dozens of witnesses, analyzed samples and reviewed satellite images.
Assad was repeatedly accused of using chemical weapons during Syria’s 13-year civil war, and there has been widespread concern about the fate of Syria’s stocks since his 2024 ouster.
In a landmark speech last year, the foreign minister of the new Syrian government pledged to dismantle any remnants of Assad’s chemical weapons program.
The OPCW welcomed the “full and unfettered access” the new Syrian authorities granted their investigators.
It was the “first instance of cooperation by the Syrian Arab Republic with an... investigation,” the OPCW said.
The OPCW wants to establish a permanent presence in Syria to draw up an inventory of chemical weapons sites and start the destruction of the stockpiles.
