Tehran (ANTARA News/Reuters) - Iran has executed four men convicted of smuggling drugs, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Saturday.

Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and apostasy -- the renouncing of religion, in this case Islam -- are all punishable by death under Iranian sharia law practised since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"They were hanged inside a prison in (the southeastern province of) Kerman today," a judiciary spokesman told Fars.

Since authorities launched a clampdown on "immoral behaviour" in July 2007, police have arrested dozens of drug addicts, smugglers, rapists and murderers.
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