Iran hung two men on Sunday who were allegedly spies for the US CIA and the Israeli Mossad. The men were Mohammad Heidari and Kourosh Ahmadi.
Heidari was accused of handing classified information to Mossad in exchange for money, while Ahmadi was accused of providing the CIA with intelligence.
The report gave no information on when the two men were arrested, or when they were convicted in court. The sentence for execution of Heidari and Ahmadi was apparently given by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, then confirmed by its Supreme Court .
It is not the first time Iran has claimed to detect and dismantle spy networks inside its borders. It has also blamed the assassinations of scientists associated with its nuclear program on Western spy agencies, as well as Mossad .
Israeli officials didn’t comment on the hanging report and the US State Department and CIA have also had not comment so far. The Human Rights Activists News Agency, an advocacy group in Iran, estimated last year that there were 488 hangings in the past 12 months. About 12 percent of those were public executions.
It is not clear if the deaths of Ahmadi and Heidari, accused and convicted spies, were made public. Among those hung last year was Majid Jamali Fashi, who was convicted of assassinating an Iranian scientist . Iran claimed that Israel’s Mossad paid Fashi $120,000 to kill Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, an elementary-particle physicist.
Iran is still holding former US Marine Amir Hekmati, who was arrested in August 2011 while visiting his grandmother. Hekmati was charged with spying on Iran for the United States and the CIA, a charge his family and the US government both deny. While he was initially sentenced to death in a closed-door trial, that conviction was overturned. The Arizona native is still waiting for a new trial.
There is no word whether the US and Israel will respond to the report of two spies being hung in Iran.
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