Four die in Iran after drinking bootleg alcohol
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Three people have been arrested in Iran after four people died from drinking bootleg alcohol.
PHOTO: PIXABAY
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TEHRAN - Iranian police have made three arrests after four people died from drinking bootleg alcohol, state media said.
The sale and consumption of alcohol has been banned in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, leading to a huge illicit trade in bootleg products, some of them adulterated.
“The consumption of homemade alcoholic beverages has led to the deaths of four people and the poisoning of five others in (southeastern) Iranshahr over the past 24 hours,” state news agency IRNA reported late on Nov 29, quoting a local medical official.
“Two injured people are in intensive care,” he was quoted as saying.
Police in Iranshahr have “identified and arrested three of the alcohol distributors”, Irna said.
Only non-Muslim minorities in Iran, which include Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, are exempt from the alcohol ban, provided they do not drink in public.
Last week Iranian footballer Armin Sohrabian, who plays for one of the country’s most popular clubs, was suspended after an online video appeared to show him carrying an alcoholic drink, local media said.
In October 2024, authorities executed four people who had been convicted of selling contaminated bootleg alcohol that had fatally poisoned 17 people the previous year. AFP
