Iran Hangs 17 for Trafficking in Drugs
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MANAMA, Bahrain — Iran hanged 17 convicted drug traffickers Sunday as part of a continuing campaign that has seen about 1,000 people publicly executed over the past year, Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
IRNA said some of the men were hanged in Tehran, the Iranian capital, and others in provincial cities of Kerman and Mashhad, after Islamic revolutionary courts in charge of an anti-drug campaign convicted them of trafficking.
The report said the men were also convicted of having connections with “international drug-smuggling rings, armed robbery, creating a state of terror and smuggling arms and ammunition.”
Iran’s late leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, ordered special courts to deal quickly and effectively with convicted drug smugglers after official statistics revealed that at least 1 million Iranians and probably many more were drug addicts.
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