Iran executes four ‘Mossad agents’

A total of ten people were found guilty of working for Israeli intelligence, Iranian state media has said

Iran has executed four people found to be linked to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, local state media outlets have reported. Three men and one woman were hanged on Friday, following an investigation involving a total of ten persons who, according to authorities, were working for West Jerusalem to damage Iran’s national security.

The culprits, “acting under the direct guidance of the Mossad intelligence officers,” were allegedly seeking to identify Iranian security officials and kidnap them. Those held in captivity were then subjected to threats and torture as the “Mossad agents” tried to extract relevant security information from them, the Iranian Mizan news agency, linked to the nation’s judiciary reported.

The group also allegedly kidnapped other people to force them, through threats and torture, to feed misinformation to the Iranian security services.

The four people were identified as Wafa Hanareh, Aram Omari, Rahman Parhazo, and Nasim Namazi. According to state media, they were active in Iran’s northwestern Western Azerbaijan province and the southern province of Hormozgan. The group also allegedly operated in Tehran, Minab, and Tabriz cities.

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They maintained video communication with Mossad and received money from Israeli intelligence for its “missions” in the form of digital currency, Iranian media reported. The culprits also set fire to the homes and vehicles of the Iranian security officials and plotted an ultimately unsuccessful assassination attempt on an Iranian official, the reports added.

Iranian law enforcement agencies were able to pick up on the group’s trail when Wafa Hanareh was captured by security forces, Mizan News Agency reported. Other media have claimed that Iranian security forces had the group under surveillance for several months.

Six other defendants in this case were sentenced to ten years behind bars on charges of “communicating with the Zionist regime” and “disrupting national security.”

Israel has not officially commented on the developments. Israeli media reported on the case but said that the “veracity” of Iran’s claims about foiled Mossad operations is “unclear.”