TEHRAN, Iran — Iran executed a man convicted of spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, the judiciary said Sunday, the latest in a series of executions following a 12-day war in June between the two countries.
“The execution of this spy… was carried out after confirmation by the Supreme Court and the rejection of his pardon request at Qom Prison,” Kazem Mousavi, chief justice of Qom province, was quoted as saying by the judiciary’s Mizan Online website.
The identity of the man — who was hanged on Saturday in the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran — was not immediately revealed.
According to the Iranian authorities, the suspect began contacting Israeli intelligence in October 2023 and was arrested in January-February 2024.
Investigators said he confessed to cooperating with Mossad and transmitting confidential information online.
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Earlier this month, six men were executed in Khuzestan province for alleged terrorism, and less than a week before that a man described as one of Israel’s top spies was hanged. Iran identified the executed man as Bahman Choobi-asl, whose case wasn’t immediately known in Iranian media reports or to activists monitoring the death penalty in the Islamic Republic.
Another, named as Roozbeh Vadi, was also executed for allegedly passing information about a nuclear scientist killed during the conflict.
Illustrative: A prisoner being held in an Iranian prison. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
Iran is known to have hanged at least ten people for espionage since its June war with Israel. The Israel Defense Forces conducted a sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites, and ballistic missile program. Jerusalem said the attack was necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from realizing its avowed plan to destroy the Jewish state, and that Tehran had been taking concrete steps toward assembling an atomic bomb.
Iran responded by firing missile barrages at Israeli cities and military sites.
Entangled in a decades-long shadow war with Israel, Iran has put to death many individuals it accuses of having links with the Mossad and facilitating its operations in the country.
The Islamic Republic, which carries out executions by hanging, is the world’s second most prolific executioner after China, according to human rights groups including Amnesty International.
Separately, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said at least four tribal leaders were killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province in southeastern Iran.
The Guards did not identify them further, but authorities in Iran frequently accuse extremist groups operating in Sistan-Baluchistan of having ties to Israel.
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