Tehran Friday Prayer Leader:

Killings of Shi’ites in Nigeria “indescribable, heinous crime”

Rasa – Tehran’s Provisional Friday Prayers Leader, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami condemned a recent attack by Nigerian Army on the country’s Shi’ite community, saying that killings of Shi’ite Muslims is an “indescribable and heinous” crime.

News ID: 3694

Date: 18 December 2015 - 18:53

RNA – “The crime is too horrible to be described,” Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said in an address to a large congregation of worshippers here in Tehran on Friday, referring to the huge number of people that were killed in recent attacks by the Nigerian army in the northern city of Zaria last weekend.

The cleric added that the exact death toll is unknown, but it can surely be said that the Nigerian army has shed the blood of hundreds of Shi’ites.

He further denounced Abuja’s excuse for the killings, saying that it is naïve to say that the army troops had been confronted by the Shi’ites and it is more naïve to believe such a lie.

The cleric emphasized that killing hundreds and refusing to return the bodies to their families and also the move to bury them in mass graves is a crime similar to those committed by the Zionist regime of Israel.

By such a crime, the Nigerian government has emboldened Takfiri terrorists and militants of Boko Haram and ISIL terrorist groups as well as the Israeli regime.

According to media reports, at least 100 people were killed this past weekend when the Nigerian army raided the Islamic Movement and arrested its leader, Shaykh Ibrahim al-Zakzaky, in the northern city of Zaria.

On Sunday, the army raided several buildings connected to the Islamic Movement and the home of Zakzaky. They arrested him and killed key members of the group, including Shaykh al-Zakzaky’s second-in-command and spokesman.

Ali, Zakzaky’s son, was among dozens who lost their life in the raid.

Three of Mr. Zakzaky’s sons had been killed in a similar attack by the Nigerian Army in July 2014.

The Islamic Movement insists its members did not attack the convoy of the Chief of Army staff, Tukur Buratai, as alleged by the Nigerian Army.

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