Suspect in Iran cleric’s murder ‘shot dead’ by police

TEHRAN: A man accused of murdering a cleric in western Iran was killed in a shootout with police on Sunday, the semi-official news agency ISNA reported. Behrouz Hajilouyi, a “thug with a criminal record,” allegedly shot Mostafa Ghasemi twice using a Kalashnikov rifle in front of the seminary where the Shiite cleric worked in Hamedan province on Saturday, ISNA said. Hajilouyi confessed to the crime in a now-deleted post on his Instagram account, the Fars news agency reported. Authorities are yet to put forward a motive for the killing. “The murderer of the 46-year old cleric was trapped on (Hamedan) city’s outskirts and shot dead in a firefight,” the city’s police chief Bakhshali Karmani told ISNA. Two police officers were injured by Hajilouyi in the 20-minute shootout, he added. Hajilouyi’s Instagram account shows photos of him posing with pistols, shotguns and automatic rifles.