Iran sentences 8 to death over Islamic State attacks in Tehran

Men have 20 days to appeal conviction for aiding terrorists who stormed parliament, blasted monument to revolution leader

A picture taken on June 7, 2017, shows a police helicopter flying around outside the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran. (AFP PHOTO / MIZA NEWS / Hasan SHIRVANI)
A picture taken on June 7, 2017, shows a police helicopter flying around outside the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran. (AFP PHOTO / MIZA NEWS / Hasan SHIRVANI)

Iran on Sunday sentenced eight people to death over attacks claimed by the Islamic State group last year.

Mousa Ghazanfarabadi, the head of the Tehran Revolutionary Courts, told state TV that they were found guilty of aiding the five terrorists who attacked parliament and a shrine to Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The attacks last June killed 18 people and wounded more than 50. Security forces killed all the attackers.

The violence began when assailants with Kalashnikov rifles and explosives stormed the parliament complex where a legislative session had been in progress. The siege lasted for hours, and one of the attackers blew himself up inside, Iran’s state TV reported at the time.

As the parliament attack unfolded, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Khomeini’s mausoleum on Tehran’s southern outskirts. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran’s first supreme leader until his death in 1989.

The revered shrine was not damaged.

Ghazanfarabadi said 18 other people face trial over the attacks. Those convicted have 20 days to appeal. The trials began last month.

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