January 18, 2025 6:16 PM.
In Iran, two judges were killed in a shooting attack today at the Supreme Court building in Tehran. State media reported that three Supreme Court judges were targeted.
Two were killed on the spot, and one other judge was injured. According to media reports, the attacker killed himself immediately after carrying out the shooting. The motive for the attack remains unclear.
A preliminary police investigation revealed that the assailant had no pending case in the Supreme Court and was not a client of the branches headed by the two judges.
The victims were identified as Muslim scholars Ali Razini and Mohammad Moghiseh, both holding the rank of hujjat al-Islam and each presiding over a different branch of the court.
“[They] were actively involved in combating crimes against national security, espionage, and terrorism,” the statement added, describing the slain judges as “courageous and experienced”.
Judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir told Iranian state television that “a person armed with a handgun entered the room” of the two judges and shot them. He said the assailant committed suicide.
According to the state-owned Tehran Times, a bodyguard of one of the judges was also injured in the attack on Saturday, the first working day of the week in the Iranian calendar.
President Masoud Pezeshkian said the “terrorist and cowardly” act must be followed up quickly by security forces and law enforcement.
Razini, 71, was also the subject of an attempted assassination attack in 1998 while he was serving as head of Tehran’s judiciary. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was president at the time, visited him in hospital.
Moghiseh, 68, was sanctioned in 2019 by the United States for having “overseen countless unfair trials, during which charges went unsubstantiated and evidence was disregarded”, according to the US Department of the Treasury.
Iranian judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei said in a statement that the judges were killed due to their “decisive” sentences against “terrorists whose hands were soaked with the pure blood of the Iranian people”.