Iran has executed a man it accused of spying for Israel and who, it claimed, had relayed classified information to Mossad agents which led to the assassination of a nuclear scientist this year.
The alleged spy, Rouzbeh Vadi, was executed by hanging, state media reported.
Tehran accused Vadi of providing Israel with information about an Iranian nuclear scientist who was killed during Israel’s airstrikes on Iran this summer, according to the judiciary news agency, Mizan.
It reported that he met Mossad officers five times in Vienna, though it did not identify the scientist who was assassinated, nor the time and place of Vadi’s arrest.
Roozbeh Vadi was believed to have been an official at the Iran Nuclear Regulatory Authority
In June Israel carried out bombing campaign against Iran that lasted almost two weeks, targeting military and nuclear facilities with missile and drone strikes.
The offensive killed several nuclear scientists, senior military commanders and, according to Tehran, hundreds of civilians.
Israel targeted Iranian nuclear facilities on June 13
VAHID SALEMI/AP
Joshua Zarka, Israel’s ambassador to France, said in June that Israel’s twelve-day war on Iran included targeted strikes that killed at least 14 physicists and engineers involved with Iran’s nuclear programme.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said the attacks were carried out because “if not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time”.
“It could be a year. It could be within a few months,” he warned.
Israeli strikes killed more than 1,000 Iranians, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency
MAJID SAEEDI/GETTY IMAGES
The attacks led Iran to accuse Israel of “crossing a new red line in international law”. Tehran subsequently launched missile attacks on Israeli cities, which left 28 dead and injured more than 3,000 people.
The Islamic republic has hanged seven people for espionage during the conflict with Israel, sparking fears from activists that the government could conduct a wave of executions.
On Wednesday, Tehran hanged a member of Islamic State after he was convicted of plotting sabotage, Mizan also said.
Mehdi Asgharzadeh was accused of being a member of the Islamic State group who participated in military training in Syria and Iraq before illegally entering Iran with a four-member team who were killed in a fight with Iranian security, the news site reported.
The Iranian supreme court upheld the sentences of lower courts and followed full legal procedures before executing both men authorities said.