A senior Shiite cleric in Iran was shot and killed on Wednesday in a northern province on the Caspian Sea, authorities said.
Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani was shot at a bank in Babolsar, in Iran's Mazandaran province, state television reported.
It said police arrested a man.
“Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani was killed this morning in an armed attack … the assailant was also arrested,” Irna news agency reported, citing an official.
The attack took place inside a bank in Babolsar city, the official said.
"The motive of the assailant is not yet clear and will be announced after it is clarified," the official added.
The governor of Mazandaran, Mahmoud Hosseinipour, said the attacker was a local security officer of the bank.
"So far, our information and documents indicate that this was not a security or terrorist act," Mr Hosseinipour told state television, adding that "the assailant did not know the ayatollah."
CCTV camera footage released by Tasnim news agency showed the security guard, wearing a blue and white jacket, shooting the cleric from behind as he was sitting in a chair at the bank.
Following the killing, Iranian Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri ordered provincial authorities to "investigate the issue from different angles, do the necessary follow-ups and report the results."
Mr Soleimani had been at the bank when another man seized a guard's firearm and began shooting over a personal dispute with an employee, striking and killing the cleric, state TV said.
Soleimani served on the Assembly of Experts, an 88-seat panel that oversees and appoints Iran's supreme leader.
He was once the personal representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan province.
Last April, a suspected terrorist attack in the north-eastern shrine city of Mashhad killed two clerics and injured another.
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Name: Peter Dicce
Title: Assistant dean of students and director of athletics
Favourite sport: soccer
Favourite team: Bayern Munich
Favourite player: Franz Beckenbauer
Favourite activity in Abu Dhabi: scuba diving in the Northern Emirates
