By Polly Johnson
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
Sunni militant group leader Abdolmalek Rigi was hanged on Sunday. [Photo Courtesy of BBC.]
TEHRAN, Iran – The leader of a former Sunni militant group was hanged in Iran on Sunday after being convicted of seventy-nine crimes in Iran, including murder, terrorist activities, armed robbery, kidnapping, and assassination attempts, among other serious crimes.
On the orders of the Islamic Revolution Court, Abdolmalek Rigi was hanged at dawn at Tehran’s Evin prison in front of family members of the victims of his crimes. Intelligence agents arrested him in February over the Persian Gulf while on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan.
His younger brother, Abdulhamid, was executed last month in Iran.
Jundallah (Soldiers of God) has been blamed by Iran for carrying out bombings, abductions, and killings in the southeastern Sistan-Balochistan province, which borders Pakistan and is about seven hundred miles southeast of Tehran. The group says it is fighting to defend the rights of ethnic Baluchis, the majority of whom live in Sistan-Baluchistan. Iran has accused the group of trying to destabilize Iran. Jundallah claims that it just wants freedom from persecution.
Sistan-Baluchistan is a center of drug trafficking, kidnappings, and armed clashes. Iran claims that Jundallah is similar to Al Qaeda, and also that Jundullah receives support from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Pakistan. All three countries have vehemently denied such allegations.
On October 18, 2009, Jundallah killed forty-two people, including six senior Revolutionary Guards commanders, in Sistan-Baluchestan. A bombing in a Shia mosque in Zahedan killed twenty-five people in May 2009.
Tehran authorities said that Rigi was en route to a meeting with U.S. or Western officials in Kyrgyzstan. Ragi, in a video statement broadcast on Iranian television said, “They said they would cooperate with us and would give me military equipment.”
According to a court statement, Rigi “collaborated and ordered fifteen armed abductions, confessed to three murders, and order the murders of tens of citizens, police and military personnel through bombings and armed actions.”
“The execution of Abdolmalek Rigi is the result of his shameful acts, and other criminals should be aware that if they continue with their outrageous acts against Islam in the country, they will meet the same fate as this criminal,” state news agency IRNA quoted Nazir Ahmed Salami, a top Sunni cleric who represents the province in the Assembly of Experts, as saying.
For more information, please see:
Tehran Times – Terrorist mastermind Abdolmalek Rigi hanged – 21 June 2010
BBC – Iran hangs Sunni militant leader Abdolmalek Rigi – 20 June 2010
CNN – Iran executes militant group leader – 20 June 2010
Los Angeles Times – Iran hangs leader of outlawed Sunni militant group – 20 June 2010
Jakarta Globe – Iran’s top Sunni rebel hanged – 20 June 2010
FOX News – Iran hangs man accused of leading insurgent group active near border with Pakistan – 19 June 2010
