Iran has sentenced five people to hang for killing a paramilitary member, a ruling condemned as a means to “spread fear” and stop protests over Mahsa Amini’s death.
Another 11 people, including three children, were handed long jail terms over the murder, judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi said late on Tuesday, adding the sentences could be appealed.
Prosecutors said paramilitary member Ruhollah Ajamian, 27, was stripped naked and killed by a group of mourners who had been paying tribute to a slain protester, Hadis Najafi.
Iran has struggled to quell the largely peaceful protests.
In a surprise move, Iran’s prosecutor general, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, was on Sunday quoted as saying that the morality police units – known formally as the Guidance Patrol – had been closed down. But his comments have yet to be followed up by an official announcement and have drawn widespread scepticism.
Ajamian had died on November 3 in Karaj, west of Tehran, after being attacked with “knives, stones, fists, kicks” and being dragged along a street, said the judiciary spokesman.
Read the article in The Australian (AFP).