Iran arrests alleged killers of Sunni cleric

TEHRAN: Iran has arrested the alleged killers of a Sunni cleric in the restive southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan as they tried to flee across the border, a prosecutor said.

Abdulwahed Rigi, who led prayers at Imam Hossein Mosque in the city of Khash and was seen as a moderate cleric, was kidnapped and killed on Thursday, the authorities said at the time.

“Agents involved in the assassination... were identified and captured,” Mehdi Shamsabadi, chief prosecutor in the provincial capital Zahedan, was quoted as saying late Tuesday by the official IRNA news agency.

“They were arrested before crossing the border,” he said, adding a pistol had been seized and that it was “clear that they had been planning other assassinations”.