Iran Executes 4 People It Says Spied for Israel

By Ahmad El-Assasy

The Iranian state-run IRNA news agency reported that Iranian authorities murdered four persons on Sunday who were allegedly employed by Israel's Mossad spy organisation. Three more people were given hefty prison terms.

According to IRNA, the nation's feared Revolutionary Guard made public the arrests of a network of individuals connected to the Israeli agency. The members, according to the report, attempted to jeopardise national security and had prior criminal histories.

Iran occasionally announces the detention of individuals it claims are spies for foreign countries, including the United States and Israel, who are Iran's archrivals in the region. Iran opposes Israel's existence and backs militant organisations in the region like Hezbollah and Hamas that are hostile to Israel.

According to the investigation, network members kidnapped people and interrogated them while also robbing and destroying private and public property. It said that the suspected spies had guns and got cryptocurrencies as payment from Mossad. No supporting evidence was offered by Iranian officials for any of the alleged offences.

Hossein Ordoukhanzadeh, Shahin Imani Mahmoudabadi, Milad Ashrafi, and Manouchehr Shahbandi were the convicts that were executed, according to IRNA. According to the news agency, three further group members were given terms ranging from five to ten years in prison, but their identities were withheld. In June, they were detained and given a death sentence for "intelligence cooperation with Israel."

Although it is still unknown which court originally brought the four men to trial in June, Iran's Revolutionary Court frequently sentences defendants to death.

Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Revolutionary Court was founded and is renowned for imposing severe penalties on individuals who defy Iran's clerical elite. More than half of the total number of state executions recorded in the Middle East that year, at least 314 individuals were put to death in Iran in 2021, according to Amnesty International.

Israel and Iran have long been suspected of spying on one another. Israel has often vowed to use military force to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons because it sees Iran as its biggest danger. Iran has vowed to respond harshly to any Israeli aggression and denies seeking such weapons.