Iran - Jundallah executions

Iran hangs 13 members of Sunni rebel group

Article published on the 2009-07-14 Latest update 2009-07-14 08:12 TU

Five people publicly hanged in Mashhad, Iran, August 2007
(Photo: AFP)

Iran executed 13 members of the Sunni Muslim insurgent group Jundallah Tuesday, calling them enemies of God. They were convicted of a string of attacks, including the kidnapping foreigners. The 13 were hanged at a prison in the southeastern city of Zahedan, the centre of a Sunni Muslim rebellion against the Shia Muslim regime in Tehran.

The 13 men were accused of “"kidnapping foreigners, killing innocents and of carrying out terrorist acts for the Jundallah group," said a local judiciary statement, quoted by the IRNA news agency.

State media had reported Monday that 14 people would be publically executed. Instead, 13 were hanged in the prison.

Abdolhamid Rigi, the brother of Jundallah’s leader Abdolmalik Rigi, was reportedly among those to be executed. He will be executed later this week, said the judiciary chief of Sistan-Baluchestan province, Ebrahim Hamidi, quoted by IRNA.

The human rights group Amnesty International had urged a stay in the executions, saying that the men had not received a fair trial.

Jundallah has claimed several attacks against the Iranian government in the province, the latest a suicide bombing at a Shia Muslim mosque in Zahedan in May, which killed 25 people.