Serial killer among 11 people hanged in Iran

Eleven people were hanged yesterday, five of them publicly, after they were convicted of crimes ranging from murder to drug smuggling, the country's official news agency, Irna, reported.

One of those hanged publicly in the southern city of Shiraz was a serial killer convicted of murdering five middle-aged women in the city of Qazvin, west of the capital Tehran. The other four had been convicted of armed robberies and kidnappings.

Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and renouncing Islam are all punishable by death under sharia.