Iran hangs three over prosecutor`s murder

Tehran: Iran on Saturday hanged in public three men convicted of killing last year a prosecutor in a restive southeastern province near the Afghan border, state media reported.

Public prosecutor Mousa Nouri was gunned down in the city of Zabol, in Sistan-Baluchestan province, along with his driver in November in a murder first claimed by a Sunni extremist group. The three men convicted of his murder, Omir Piri, Alireza Dehmardeh and Iman Galavi "were sentenced to death for forming a terror team and killing... Nouri," IRNA news agency said. They were executed "in public this morning" in the same spot where Nouri was shot dead "after the Supreme Court upheld the verdict," the agency said. According to the United Nations, more than 170 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2014. UN chief Ban Ki-moon in March voiced alarm over the high number of hangings in Iran, saying at least 500 people had been executed last year, including 57 in public. The Sunni extremist group, Jaish-ul Adl (Army of Justice in Arabic), had claimed responsibility for Nouri`s murder saying it was in retaliation for a mass hanging of Sunni rebels by Shiite-dominated Iran. However, Iranian officials dismissed the claim, saying the attack was carried out by drug smugglers who held a grudge against the prosecutor. Sistan-Baluchestan is home to a large community of minority Sunni Muslims, unlike the rest of Iran, and the province has long played host to drug traffickers and Sunni militants. Murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and adultery are among the crimes punishable by death in Iran, based on its interpretation of sharia law in force since its 1979 Islamic revolution.