Iran executes murderer of Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani

Iranian authorities executed a man convicted of killing a powerful cleric in April, the judiciary said Wednesday.

Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani, a member of the Assembly of Experts that selects the country’s supreme leader, was killed on April 26 in a bank in Babolsar city in the northern province of Mazandaran.

The murderer, who has not been named, was a security guard at the bank. CCTV footage published by local media showed him shooting the cleric from behind as he was sitting in a chair.

“The sentence of qesas (Islamic law of retribution) for the murderer of Martyr Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani was carried out today after being approved by the country’s Supreme Court,” a local official said, according to the judiciary’s Mizan Online website.

Under Islamic law, the sentence of qesas can be dropped if the victim’s family agrees to spare the convict.

Soleimani, 75, was previously a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and led Friday prayers in the cities of Kashan and Zahedan.

The 88-strong Assembly of Experts is tasked with supervising, dismissing, and electing the supreme leader. It is headed by ultra-conservative 96-year-old cleric Ahmad Jannati.

Its members are elected for eight-year terms, but candidates are closely vetted.

In April 2022, two clerics died in a knife attack in Iran’s second city of Mashhad. A 21-year-old suspected jihadist, Abdolatif Moradi, was hanged two months later for the crime.

Rights group Amnesty International says Iran executes more people than any country except China.

It has executed more than 600 people so far this year, already the highest figure in eight years, according to a report last month by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group.