Iran says Basij guard shot outside home killed in robbery gone awry

By AFP 4 January 2023, 6:35 pm

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Police in Tehran say a Revolutionary Guards commander killed outside his home was shot to death while trying to chase a robbery suspect.

Qassam Fathollahi was shot “three times when he and a fellow resident tried to capture the burglar in the building’s car park,” criminal investigation division chief Colonel Morteza Nesari tells state broadcaster IRIB.

“Mr. Fathollahi and his neighbor were taken to the hospital… but Mr. Fathollahi died from the severity of his injuries and bleeding,” the police officer says, adding that the “shooter fled the scene.”

Fathollahi was a base commander for the Basij militia, an elite paramilitary unit that is part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and has been heavily involved in putting down months of protests.