Motives For The Shooting Of Iran's Syiah Senior Ulama, Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani To Death, Still Mysterious

Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani (Photo: Screenshot of Youtube @DD INDIA)

JAKARTA - Iranian Shiite Muslim cleric and member of the Expert Council, Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani was shot in northern Iran on Wednesday, April 26 this morning. He later died in hospital. A state media report, as reported by the BBC, the location of the shooting of Ayatollah Abbas occurred at a bank in Laboldar, Mazandran province. It is not yet certain what the motive of the perpetrator was. Ayatollah Soleimani is one of 88 scholars in the Expert Council who have been able to appoint Iran's supreme leader and can - theoretically - get rid of him. He resigned in 2019 after 17 years in office. At the time of the incident, Ayatollah Soleimani, who was in his mid-70s, was reported to be sitting in a branch of Bank Melli in Babalsar. Hawzahnews, Iran's official website of Shia's seminary, quoted a witness as saying a man took a bank guard's gun and opened fire. However, this statement is different from the Governor of Mazandaran, Mahmoud Hosseinipour. He told state TV that the attacker was a bank guard, according to the AFP news agency. "So far, our information and documents show that this is not a security measure or a terrorist," he said. Last April, two clerics were killed and the third injured in a knife attack at a Shiite temple in the northeastern city of Mashhad.

An Uzbekistann man was hanged in June after being found guilty of the stabbing. Police did not reveal the motive of the perpetrator.