Iran sentences man to death over Shiite shrine attack

TEHRAN, June 07 (AFP): An Iranian court sentenced a man to death over an April shrine attack in the Shiite holy city of Mashhad that killed two clerics, the judiciary said on Tuesday.

The April 5 attack on the Imam Reza shrine, where pilgrims had gathered to worship during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, killed two clerics and injured a third.

Local media at the time identified the assailant as Abdolatif Moradi, a 21-year-old Sunni extremist and ethnic Uzbek who had entered Iran illegally via the Pakistani border a year earlier.

"The person who stabbed two clerics in the Imam Reza shrine at Mashhad was sentenced to death," judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi told a news conference in the capital Tehran.

The defence has appealed the verdict at the Supreme Court, which will review the case, the spokesman added.