The country is frequently criticized by human rights groups
for maintaining one of the highest execution rates in the world.
The drug smugglers were executed in the central city of Qom.
Mostafa Barzegar Ganji, a judiciary official from the city, told the official
Irna news agency 16 other narcotics traffickers were also awaiting hanging
there.
"They will soon be hanged if the authorities do not
forgive them," he said.
The kidnappers were put to death on Saturday in Zahedan
prison in the volatile border province of Sistan-Baluchestan, the semi-official
Fars news agency reported.
"These people had kidnapped innocent citizens a number
of times, and after receiving money from their families they still killed some
of their victims," Fars quoted provincial prosecutor Ebrahim Hamidi as
saying.
Iran is a key transit route for narcotics smuggled from neighboring
Afghanistan, which produces more than 90 percent of the world's supply of
opium. More than 3,500 Iranian security personnel have been killed fighting
drug smugglers since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and
apostasy - the renouncing of Islam - are all punishable by death under Iran's
Islamic law practised since the revolution.
