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Sunday, June 20, 2010
- Jundullah
Leader Abdulmalik Rigi Executed
TEHRAN — Abdolmalek Rigi, head
of the Sunni rebel group
Jundallah who waged
a deadly insurgency in Iran's
southeastern province of
Sistan-Baluchestan,
was hanged early Sunday, state
news agency IRNA reported.
"After the decision of the
Tehran revolutionary tribunal,
Abdolmalek Rigi
was hanged on Sunday morning in
Evin prison," IRNA said.
"The head of the armed
counter-revolutionary group in
the east of the
country... was responsible for
armed robbery, assassination
attempts, armed
attacks on the army and police
and on ordinary people, and
murder," it
quoted a court statement as
saying.
Rigi was captured in February
while on a flight from Dubai to
Kyrgyzstan.
His hanging comes less than a
month after his brother
Abdolhamid was also
executed on charges of
"terrorism."
Rigi led the shadowy Jundallah
(Soldiers of God) that killed
civilians as
well as military officials in
Sistan-Baluchestan province.
Jundallah says it is fighting
Tehran's Shiite rule to secure
rights for
Sunni Baluchis who form a
significant population in
Sistan-Baluchestan which
borders Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
A top Sunni cleric who
represents the province in the
Assembly of Experts,
the body which supervises the
activities of Iran's supreme
leader, said the
people of Sistan-Baluchestan
were "very happy" with Rigi's
execution.
"The execution of Abdolmalek
Rigi is the result of his
shameful acts, and
other criminals should be aware
that if they continue with their
outrageous
acts against Islam in the
country, they will meet the same
fate as this
criminal," IRNA quoted Nazir
Ahmed Salami as saying.
IRNA, quoting the court
statement, said Rigi's group was
"responsible for
the killing of 154 members of
security forces and other
innocent people and
wounding of 320 people since
2003."
It said Jundallah was "linked to
members of foreign intelligence
services,
including members from US and
Zionist regime's intelligence
services under
the cover of NATO."
It was also linked to the
intelligence services of some
Arab states and the
counter-revolutionary group
People's Mujahedeen, the
statement said.
Rigi, who the statement said had
appealed for clemency, was also
charged
with forming the "terrorist
group Jundallah which was
fighting the Islamic
republic."
"He collaborated and ordered 15
armed abductions, confessed to
three
murders, and ordered the murders
of tens of citizens, police and
military
personnel through bombings and
armed actions," the statement
added.
Rigi's arrest was reportedly a
spectacular operation, with
warplanes forcing
an aircraft flying him from
Dubai to Kyrgyzstan to land in
Iran.
Soon after his arrest, Jundallah
claimed it had appointed
Muhammad Thahir
Baluch as its new leader, the
US-based SITE monitoring agency
reported.
According to SITE, Jundallah
said in its website posting:
"Let the (Iranian)
regime know that it will face a
movement that is stronger and
much more
solid than ever before and one
whose existence it has not been
aware of."
A few days after Rigi's arrest
Iranian state media alleged that
the United
States had offered to provide
the militant aid to battle the
Islamic regime.
"They (Americans) said they
would cooperate with us and will
give me
military equipment," Rigi said
in a taped statement broadcast
on Iran's
state-run English-language Press
TV.
Tehran has long accused the
group of being trained and
equipped by American
and British intelligence
services as well as by Pakistan
in a bid to
destabilise the government.
Washington denies the charges.
Rigi's brother Abdolhamid was
hanged in Zahedan, the capital
of
Sistan-Baluchestan, on May 24,
state media had reported.
He was convicted of "Moharebeh"
(armed opposition to the state)
and being
"corrupt on earth by membership
in a terrorist group."
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- Source_
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5glzjRcU_feq2Nh62hQCmdKVpzOwA
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