Iran hangs 3 political prisoners - opposition

Iran Focus

Tehran, 20 Dec - Iranian authorities on Saturday hanged three political prisoners in a prison in the south-eastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan, the main Iranian opposition coalition reported.

Abdolqani Gangozei, 29, and two other unnamed political prisoners were hanged at dawn on Saturday in Zahedan Prison, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said.

"Gangozei had spent the past eight years in the regime's notorious prisons", the report said, adding that on Thursday he was transferred from Ward 5 of Zahedan Prison to solitary confinement in preparation for his execution.

Other prisoners had reported that Gangozei had been told by the regime's local judiciary officials that he would soon be released from prison, but following a series of skirmishes in the region in recent days which led to the death of a number of government security forces, the authorities executed him in "an act of vengeance", the NCRI said.

Gangozei was an active opponent of the regime and routinely smuggled out news about the regime's crimes in Zahedan Prison, the report added. He also signed numerous statements by political prisoners condemning the "regime's atrocities inside Iran and abroad".