Iran fires cyber police chief over blogger death

Sattar Beheshti died in custody four days after his arrest in October for ‘cybercrimes’

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s police have fired the head of the Tehran cybercrimes unit over the case of a blogger who died while in police custody.

The semi-official Fars news agency says Saturday that Gen. Mohammad Hasan Shokrian was fired due to “failure and lack of sufficient supervision over the performance of personnel under his command.”

Iran’s judiciary confirmed last month that Sattar Beheshti died in police custody and that wounds were found on his body.

According to Iranian officials, Beheshti was detained Oct. 30 for alleged “cybercrimes” and taken to Evin prison in north Tehran the next day. He was handed over to cyber police for interrogation the same day. Beheshti died Nov. 3