Tehran, September 17: An Iranian judicial official says the recent terror acts in the eastern city of Sanandaj have been masterminded by armed separatist and hardline Salafi groups.
Head of the Kurdistan Justice Department Ali-Akbar Garousi said that security forces had taken necessary measures to arrest those behind the assassinations.
Over the past days, unidentified gunmen carried out assassination attacks against two judges, Hassan Davtalab and Mehdi Kamyabi, and killed interim Friday Prayers leader Mamousta Borhan in Sanandaj.
“These acts have been carried out by the armed separatist and hardline Salafi groups,” Tabnak quoted Garousi as saying.
Davtalab was shot in front of his home Wednesday morning and was taken to a Sanandaj hospital.
On September 13, Borhan Ali was shot dead in the Kurdish city by three unidentified gunmen who had approached him ‘under the pretext of asking religious questions’.
The interim Friday Prayers leader, who was part of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election campaign in Kurdistan, was hit by a hail of bullets.
The incident came only days after a failed attempt to assassinate Revolutionary Court judge Kamyabi in Sanandaj.
Garousi denied any relation between the terror acts.
—–Agencies