Iran on Friday hanged four people and sentenced several others to long prison terms after they were accused of kidnapping government officials and sabotaging for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.
The official Mizan news agency identified the four accused spies as Wafa Henare, Aram Omari, Rahman Parhazo and Nasim Namazi.
Iranian prosecutors said the four had “direct contact with Mossad officers” through video communications and staged their operations in Tehran and Iran’s West Azerbaijan and Hormozgan provinces.
“The members of this group set fire to the cars and houses of some people related to the security institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran and received money by taking pictures and sending them to Mossad officers,” Mizan reported.
Fars, another Iranian news agency, said the four were hanged Friday in West Azerbaijan on charges of “corruption on Earth” and “waging war against God” over their work to “undermine Iran’s security.” They had been in custody since October 2022.
“The four were part of a 10-member sabotage group linked to Mossad, whose main objective was to identify Iranian intelligence agents … foiling Israeli plots against Iran,” Fars reported. “They were all tracked down and arrested after complex intelligence operations and close surveillance.”
Government prosecutors said Mossad officials ordered its team to locate members of Iran’s security agencies and obtain information “through abduction, death threats and brutal battery.”
“The convicts had received money from Israeli agents and Mossad officers on several occasions for the tasks they had completed,” Iranian Justice Department official Nasser Atabati told Fars.
The executions came a week after an Israeli airstrike in Syria killed Razi Mousavi, a senior officer in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He is believed to be the third IRGC officer killed in Syria since Hamas launched its Oct. 7 attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip.
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