Examination of Criminal Policy in the Assassination of Domestic Officials

Abstract

In this article, the focus is on examining assassination attempts against domestic officials, analyzing this crime, and discussing its associated punishment. Security is one of the most fundamental human needs, and therefore ensuring or preserving it constitutes the primary duty entrusted to governments. Eliminating threats or minimizing them is considered a prerequisite for the emergence of security, but this alone is not sufficient. This objective factor becomes effective only when it is also perceived and felt, because the illusion and perception of insecurity create the most insecure conditions for human beings. Consequently, even in the absence of any actual threat, security cannot be achieved without a sense of assurance. The assassination attempt on the lives of domestic officials includes certain preliminary acts and attempts related to crimes against internal security. Whenever an individual, with motives of opposition to the government or intentions of destabilizing the nation, inflicts harm on the physical integrity or life of the leader, any of the heads of the three branches of power, the president of the country, the nation’s political representatives, or religious authorities (marājiʿ al-taqlīd), while the criminal outcome of the act was foreseeable but it cannot be conclusively determined that the perpetrator intentionally desired or pursued that outcome, the act—due to its nature as attempted murder—falls within the scope of terrorist acts.