(Bloomberg) -- A top prosecutor in Iran has accused U.K. security company G4S of being involved in the killing of General Qassem Soleimani, the state-run Mizan Online reported.
The company has rejected the claim as “completely unfounded.”
Ali Al-Qasi Mehr said G4S, which provides security at Baghdad airport, “was responsible for securing flights” at the airport and “as soon as General Soleimani and his party arrived, elements in the company provided information about them to the terrorists,” according to Mizan Online, the Iranian judiciary's official news portal.
The accusation comes days before the anniversary of Soleimani's assassination in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad on Jan. 3 that also killed Iraqi military commander Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis.
Iran has vowed to continue revenge operations in response to the killing for as long as U.S. forces remain in the Middle East, putting the U.S. and its allies in the region on edge.
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G4S, which is headquartered in London, rejected the allegations as “completely unfounded speculation,” according to an emailed statement. “G4S wishes to make clear that it had absolutely no involvement in the attack on Qasem Soleimani and Abu-Mahdi al-Muhandis,” the company said.
More than 2,000 “international documents” had been collected to support a legal case against the company, Al-Qasi Mehr, who is Tehran's prosecutor-general, said without specifying what the documents were, according to Mizan Online.
G4S has been responsible for securing Baghdad International Airport since 2010.
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