A MAN fatally shot two prominent hard-line judges in Iran’s capital on Saturday, officials said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the shootings of the judges, clerics Mohammad Mogheiseh and Ali Razini, who both served on Iran’s Supreme Court. 

A bodyguard for one of the judges was also wounded in the attack at the Palace of Justice in Tehran, which also serves as the headquarters of the country’s judiciary and typically has tight security.

The attacker, who was armed with a handgun, killed himself, the IRNA news agency said.

“According to initial investigations, the person in question did not have a case in the Supreme Court nor was he a client of the branches of the court,” the judiciary’s Mizan news agency said. 

Asghar Jahangir, a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, separately told Iranian television that the shooter had been an “infiltrator,” suggesting he had worked at the courthouse where the killings took place.

Later in the day, Mr Jahangir told Iranian national TV that others were involved. 

He said: “In this regard, some individuals were identified, summoned or arrested and investigations of them have begun.”

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered his condolences for the “martyrdom” of both judges.

Mr Razini had been targeted previously. In January 1999, attackers on motorcycles hurled an explosive at his vehicle, wounding him as he left work as the head of the judiciary in Tehran.

Both men had been named by activists and exiles as taking part in the 1988 executions, which came at the end of Iran’s long war with Iraq. 

International rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed, while the exiled Iranian opposition group People’s Mujahedin Organisation of Iran (MEK), puts the number at 30,000.

Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions.

The MEK declined to comment on the killings.