Gunman shoots dead two judges at Iran’s supreme court
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Two hard-line judges have been shot dead after an assassin walked into the country’s Supreme Court and opened fire on Saturday morning. Senior clerics Ali Razini, 71, and Mohammad Moghiseh, 68, were killed by a gunman who entered the building in capital Tehran.
![[Two Supreme Court judges shot dead in Tehran]](https://static.standard.co.uk/2025/01/18/15/23/Two-Supreme-Court-judges-shot-dead-in-Tehran-zp1ac0xy.jpeg?quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the shootings. But both men are said to have played roles in the persecution and mass execution of dissidents throughout the 1980s and 1990s. According to local media, the attacker then killed himself with his handgun while fleeing the scene.
A bodyguard for one of the judges also was wounded in the attack at the Palace of Justice, which typically has tight security. Their killings - a rare attack targeting the judiciary - come as Iran faces economic turmoil, the mauling of its Middle East allies by Israel and the return of Donald Trump to the White House on Monday.
In a statement to the Iranian state news agency IRNA, the judiciary’s media office described the incident as a premeditated assassination. “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,” reported the Mizan 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.
