Iran hangs judge's killers in public

TEHRAN, Aug 2 (Reuters) Iran hanged the killers of a judge, who had jailed several reformist dissidents, before a crowd of hundreds of people today.

Majid Kavousifar and Hossein Kavousifar, his nephew, were hanged in front of Tehran's Ershad judiciary complex, where they shot dead judge Hassan Moghaddas in his car in 2005.

The two were not political activists, but Tehran's public prosecutor said Majid Kavousifar had believed the judge was corrupt.

The prosecutor branded the killers as ''terrorists''.

Judge Moghaddas had presided over the jailing of seven dissidents in 2000 after they attended a conference in Berlin on Iranian reform.

Iran has one of the highest rates of execution in the world, but public executions are relatively rare.

Hoods over the heads of the judge's killers were removed before the hanging, which took place in front of a giant portrait of Moghaddas. Hossein Kavousifar was in tears. His uncle smiled and waved goodbye.

Onlookers in the street and on the roofs of houses chanted and took pictures with mobile phones. Some laughed.

The tearful mother of one of the killers shouted: ''God, please give me back my son.'' Dozens of people have been executed for rape, smuggling and other offences in Iran in recent weeks. Most were arrested in a crackdown on ''immoral behaviour'', which began in April.

Iran hanged nine men ysterday for rape, armed robbery and other offences. Some 16 people were hanged in July.

Murder, rape, adultery, armed robbery, apostasy and drug smuggling are all punishable by death under Iran's Islamic Sharia law, imposed since the 1979 revolution.

The number of executions doubled to at least 177 last year, according to Amnesty International. Since the beginning of 2007, at least 124 people have been put to death. Western rights groups have called on Iran to abolish the death penalty.

REUTERS CS KN1422