Iran executes 2 opposition members over alleged attacks on civilian sites

LONDON (AP) — Iran said Sunday it has executed two members of the exiled opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq after convicting them of carrying out attacks on public and civilian infrastructure.

The judiciary’s official news website, Mizan Online, reported that Behrouz Ehsani Eslamlou and Mehdi Hasani were hanged on Sunday morning after being found guilty of using improvised mortar launchers to target residential areas, educational institutions and government buildings.

In January, rights group Amnesty International had issued an appeal for Eslamlou and Hasani, saying the two had been interrogated without the presence of lawyers and had been subjected “to torture and other ill-treatment, including beatings and prolonged solitary confinement, to extract self-incriminating statements.”

The Mojahedin Organization of Iran, also known as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, issued a statement decrying the executions and said both men had been “subjected to savage torture.”

Calling for international condemnation of the executions, the group said another 14 people have been sentenced to death in Iran for alleged membership in the organization “and are at imminent risk of execution.”

Iranian courts charged the two men with several offenses, including waging war against the state, conspiracy, sabotage and membership in a terrorist organization. Prosecutors accused them of plotting to destabilize national security and damage public property.

The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, once a Marxist-Islamist group that opposed Iran’s monarchy, backed the 1979 Islamic Revolution but later broke with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s government. It carried out a series of deadly bombings and assassinations in the 1980s and supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war — stances that still provoke widespread resentment within Iran. The group is now largely based in Albania but claims to operate a clandestine network inside Iran.

The last known execution of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq members took place in 2009, following their conviction in connection with an attempted bombing in Tehran’s central Enghelab Square.