Iran hangs man for role in Guards bus bombing

TEHRAN, Feb 19 (Reuters) Iran hanged today a man convicted of involvement in a bomb attack on a Revolutionary Guards bus last week that killed 11 people in the southeast of the country, an official and state media said.

Nasrollah Shanbehzahi, who had confessed on television to taking part in Wednesday's bombing in the city of Zahedan, was executed in public to shouts of ''Death to America'', ''Death to Israel'' and ''Death to rebels,'' IRNA news agency reported.

An official in the governor of Zahedan's office confirmed the execution had taken place at the same site where the bus carrying staff members of the Guards was destroyed.

Iranian officials have accused the United States and Britain of involvement in the attack and said explosives used in the attack were US-made. Iran often blames Washington and London for stirring up ethnic and sectarian divisions in Iran.

The bus bombing was claimed by Jundollah (God's soldiers), a shadowy Sunni Muslim group that Iran -- which is overwhelmingly Shi'ite Muslim -- has linked to al Qaeda. It was followed two days later by a blast also in Zahedan that caused no casualties.

The crowd watching the hanging also chanted ''Death to Wahhabis'', IRNA reported, referring to a strict form of Sunni Islam based in Saudi Arabia that regards Shi'ites as virtual heretics.

After the blast, Shi'ite and Sunni clerics were quick to urge Iranians not to blame Iran's Sunni minority for the bombing, instead accusing foreigners of being behind it.

''After completing the legal procedure, the (death) sentence was carried out at 1300 hrs today in the same place that the bus was bombed in Zahedan's Sarallah Boulevard,'' IRNA reported.

It gave no further details about the trial. Shanbehzahi had earlier appeared on regional state-owned television confessing to being involved. His comments were later also broadcast on national state radio.

IRNA and another news agency, ILNA, said he was convicted of involvement in other crimes, including two murders.

Last week, New York-based Human Rights Watch urged Iran to ''halt all executions of people who have been sentenced to death in secret following unfair trials that do not meet minimal international standards of justice''.

That statement was prompted by the execution of 10 people since December who were convicted of involvement in bombings in the west of Iran in 2005. The rights group said the 10 were sentenced to death after a one-day secret trial.

Iran dismisses charges of rights abuses and points to what it says are abuses in the West, citing for example detainees held at a US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

REUTERS AKJ PM1540