Iran has executed two members of the outlawed Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) for firing improvised projectiles at civilian sites, the judiciary’s Mizan news agency said on Sunday.
Mehdi Hassani and Behrouz Ehsani-Eslamloo were described as “operational elements” of the group. Their death sentences, issued on charges including moharebeh (waging war against God), destruction of public property and membership in a terrorist organisation, were upheld by the Supreme Court, Mizan said.
According to the report, the pair set up a safe house in Tehran where they built launchers and hand-held mortars, then “fired projectiles heedlessly” at homes and public facilities, and conducted propaganda and intelligence work for the MEK. Semi-official Mehr news agency said Ehsani-Eslamloo was arrested in 2022 after an explosion at the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology that the MEK claimed.
The MEK—also known as the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran—was a prominent leftist-Islamist faction that carried out bombings against the shah’s government and U.S. targets in the 1970s before breaking with other forces of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Now based in exile, mainly near Paris, it has long sought to overthrow the Islamic Republic. The United States and European Union listed the MEK as a terrorist group until 2012.