In a startling development, Iran’s chief justice has called for the rapid execution of “enemy agents,” according to a leaked video that emerged on the same day the United States negotiated a temporary ceasefire with Tehran.
Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, a staunch hardliner in Iran’s strict Islamic regime, urged the judiciary to hasten proceedings against those identified as “agents and affiliates of the enemy,” a category that includes protesters who may face the death penalty.
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“When it comes to rulings such as asset confiscation and the death penalty for enemy agents, the process should be accelerated,” Mohseni-Ejei stated, as per a video and translation released by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center on Tuesday.
“We need more verdicts against the enemy’s affiliates,” he added.
While state media has confirmed 14 executions by the regime so far this year, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, based in Norway, suggests there may have been as many as 160 hangings since the beginning of January.
Those executed were convicted of intangible charges like “waging war against God” and “corruption on Earth.”
The notoriously conservative Mohseni-Ejei was handpicked in 2021 to lead Iran’s supreme court by slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. An acolyte of the Islamic Republic, he frequently calls for the harshest punishments — either torture or death — for protesters who have revolted against the regime.
The conservative justice is one of the few regime leaders who survived devastating airstrikes on Feb. 28, which wiped out Ali Khamenei and dozens of his top military leaders — and launched the Iran war.
Mohseni-Ejei also accused President Trump and Israel of fomenting nationwide anti-regime protests in January — which coincided with the slaughter of thousands of demonstrators by Khamenei’s henchmen.
The killings of more than 7,000 protestors have been confirmed by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, though thousands more are still under investigation.
The US and Iran reached a delicate cease-fire late Tuesday after Trump chillingly warned that “a whole civilization will die” if the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping waterway, wasn’t reopened immediately.
The tenuous deal is already off to a rocky start as Iran reportedly blocked ships from passing through the Strait on Wednesday.
Tehran blamed the reversal on Israel striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon — despite Trump saying that Beirut was never part of the cease-fire agreement.
