Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Iran hangs Zahedan bomber http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\02\20\story_20-2-2007_pg7_7
TEHRAN: Iran on Monday publicly executed by hanging a man who had confessed to involvement in last week's deadly bomb attack on members of the Revolutionary Guards in the tense city of Zahedan, which borders Pakistan, state media reported.
The official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said that an Iranian revolutionary court had found Nosrallah Shanbeh-Zehi guilty of participating in the Zahedan attack that killed 11 of the guards, as well as an attack on a bank that left two people dead. He was hanged at the same location as last Wednesday's attack, IRNA added.
Shanbeh-Zehi was paraded on local television a day after the bombing confessing to his involvement in the blast and working with the Sunni Jundallah militant group, which had, in unconfirmed website reports, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The car bomb attack in Zahedan, 40 kilometres from the Pakistan border, was followed on Friday by late night clashes and a percussion bomb, which lightly wounded one person.
Local officials have said that the unrest bore hallmarks of involvement by the United States and Britain, reiterating previous allegations of Western troublemaking in the southeastern Sistuan-Balochistan province.
The hanging brings to at least 28 the number of executions in Iran this year. At least 154 people were executed in the country in 2006, according to an AFP tally based on press and witness reports. Capital offences in the Islamic Republic include murder, rape, armed robbery, apostasy, blasphemy, serious drug trafficking, repeated sodomy, adultery or prostitution, treason and espionage. afp
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