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Iran official rejects UN investigator's report on Iran's executions as 'baseless accusations'

Associated Press
Published | Updated

TEHRAN, Iran – A senior Iranian official is publicly dismissing the latest report by a U.N. investigator about a spike in executions in Iran.

The head of Iran's Human Rights Council, Mohammad Javad Larijani, said Wednesday that "Ahmad Shaheed's report is a collection of baseless accusations and it was collected from terrorism-related references." His quotes were carried by the state TV's news website.

Shaheed, the special investigator on the human rights situation in Iran, said 69 percent of executions during the first six months of 2015 were reportedly for drug-related offenses, reflecting the rising drug influx in the country.

Shaheed said in his report that executions in Iran have been rising at "an exponential rate" since 2005 and could top 1,000 this year as the country cracks down on drug offenders.