Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Mar. 02 Two men accused of carrying out a recent bombing in the south-western city of Ahwaz were hanged in public on Thursday morning, a government-owned news agency reported.
Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Mar. 02 Two men accused of carrying out a recent bombing in the south-western city of Ahwaz were hanged in public on Thursday morning, a government-owned news agency reported.
The two, Ali Afrawi and Mehdi Navasseri, appeared on state television the night before and confessed to having carried out the attack. Televised recanting by political dissidents is regularly aired on Irans state-run media and has drawn international condemnation in the past.
One of the two men said that he had been in contact with groups in Britain and Canada who were seeking to destabilise the oil-rich Khuzistan province. Ahwaz is the provincial centre of Khuzistan.
Irans Minister of Intelligence and Security, or secret police chief, announced on Wednesday that more than ten people had been arrested in connection with the recent spate of bombings in Ahwaz.
He repeated the charge that the attackers were guided from abroad.
A string of top Iranian officials, including hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have accused Britain of being behind the bombings.
London has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks. Dissidents believe the bombings are the work of Iranian intelligence in a bid to smear opposition groups. Irans intelligence services have in the past acknowledged that they have carried out bombings and assassinations to tarnish the image of their opponents and brand them as terrorists.
Ethnic Arabs despise what they describe as the central governments discriminatory and repressive policy against them in the oil-rich Khuzistan Province. Many Iranian officials and politicians have accused the United States, Britain, and exile opposition groups of stirring up unrest in the province.
The following are pictures of the execution of the two men:
