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Rabat – Iran has reported executing on Friday four people accused of alleged ties to Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, according to Mizan, the Iranian news outlet affiliated with the country’s judiciary.
The four “committed extensive actions against the country’s security under guidance of Mossad,” reported Mizan.
Executed in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan were the three men identified as Vafa Hanareh, Aram Omari, Rahman Parhazo and one woman, Nadim Namazi. They were sentenced to death, charged with “moharebeh,” an islamic legal term which means “war against God,” “corruption on Earth”, and “collaboration with the Zionist regime”.
The four were accused of kidnapping Iranian security forces to extract intelligence, and setting fire to cars and apartments of agents. Their case involved a total of ten offenders, and the rest have been sentenced to years in jail.
It is not clear if they will face execution. Iranian intelligence investigated the group for four months, from January to May 2022, when they were arrested and brought to Iran from a “neighboring country,” reported state-run news agency IRNA.
On December 16, a man accused of affiliation to Mossad was executed in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan.
Iran does not recognize Israel, and the two countries have been engaged in a shadow war for several years.
These executions come just days after the death of high-ranking Iranian general Sayyed Razi Mousavi, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Damascus on Monday. Iranian officials and allied militant groups have called for revenge, but are yet to retaliate.
According to human rights group Amnesty International, Iran executes more people per year than any other nation except China. In 2022, Amnesty International recorded 576 executions throughout Iran, a 75% increase in rates in the previous year.
