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.
In body camera video released on Thursday by the Canton Police Department, officers are seen apprehending the man
Voter turnout around the halfway mark was 39%, an Election Commission spokesperson said