Iranian authorities executed 20 minority Sunni prisoners at the Rajai Shahr Prison west of Tehran in a single day, the country's attorney general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri told state-run broacaster IRIB in an interview late Wednesday.
The prisoners were executed on Tuesday after an Iranian court convicted them of crimes including homicide and endangering national security, Montazeri was cited as telling IRIB.
"These people had murdered women and children, caused destruction and acted against state security," he said.
"They killed Sunni religious leaders in several Kurdish regions," he added.
The Iran Human Rights watchdog deplored the executions and called on the international community to condemn them.
"Many if not all of these prisoners were subjected to unfair trials and sentenced to death based on confessions extracted under torture," IHR spokesperson Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said in a statement on the group's website.
"Their execution is a crime and Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the other leaders of the Islamic Republic must be held accountable for these crimes," says , the for Iran Human Rights.
Iran is yet again the regional leader in executions this year - at least 230 - and put to death nearly 1,000 people in 2015, more than any other country except China, according to campaign group Amnesty International.
Murder, drug-trafficking, 'enmity against God', rape and sodomy are among crimes punishable with death in the theocratic state.
