Student Executed in Iran on Espionage Charges

A young man who was "kidnapped" and imprisoned in Iran on espionage charges in 2018 has been executed, Iran's judiciary has confirmed.

The Norway-based nonprofit Iran Human Rights received news that Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd had been executed on Saturday morning, having been sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court. A source told IHR that Iranian state media was "even lying about the time of his execution".

The judiciary's official news agency Mizan later stated that Mousavi-Majd's death sentence "was carried out on Monday morning over the charge of espionage so that the case of his betrayal to his country will be closed forever".

Reports of Detainee "Severely Tortured" Before Making Forced Confession

Accounts of exactly how and when Mousavi-Majd was arrested vary. He is thought to have been studying at a small international university in Beirut when he was "kidnapped" and later taken to Tehran.

Iran Human Rights is poised to publish fresh revelations of the "severe torture" Mousavi-Majd was reportedly subjected to, first by members of Hezbollah and then the IRGC in Iran. Sources have told IHR that Mousavi-Majd's body was covered in bruises and burns, and he had been subjected to high-voltage electric shocks in order to extract an on-camera confession.

In a series of opaque press statements from June 10 onwards, Iran's judiciary accused Mousavi-Majd of spying for the US and Israel by passing information about the place of residence and travel routes of Ghasem Soleimani, the late commander of the IRGC's Qods Force, to the CIA and Israeli Mossad. The judiciary was later forced to clarify this was unrelated to Soleimani's assassination. Later coverage by Iranian state-controlled media added stealing information about weapons systems, advisory units and telecoms systems to the list of charges against Mousavi-Majd.

The state-controlled Fars News Agency has claimed Mousavi-Majd was a "spy" fluent in Arabic and English who worked as a translator "for a company affiliated with Iran", who was "not an organizational member of the IRGC, but he was able to enter many sensitive areas under the guise of a translator".

Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese IT specialist and who spent four years in arbitrary detention at Iran's notorious Evin Prison, has insisted that Mousavi-Majd was innocent. He told IranWire he believed his former cellmate was targeted due to Facebook posts criticizing Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah. IHR understands he had also attended an anti-Hezbollah demonstration in Lebanon.

All Signs Point to a Political Killing

Iran Human Rights had previously warned about Mousavi-Majd's impending execution after, it said, he was transferred to an unknown location on July 6. Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam told IranWire that the case had been clouded by changes to the official version of events, including the timeline and charges.

"In this particular case, we don't know what the background is," he told IranWire. "What we do know is that someone who claims to be innocent has been subjected to so much torture and forced to confess to something he probably hasn't done.

"One of the reasons they could be doing this is they want to demonstrate power and say they are in full control. This is an old tactic by the Iranian security forces. Their response to anything, basically any problem, is execution. When they don't find the right person to execute, they basically construct their own scenario."

This execution comes amid an avalanche of social media criticism of the death sentence handed down to three young Iranians arrested during the November 2019 protests. The "#Do_not_execute" hashtag was shared millions of times in response to the execution order for  Amirhossein Moradi, Saeed Tamjidi and Mohmmad Rajabi, including by Reza Shah Pahlavi, Donald Trump and the reformist politician and daughter of the former President Rafsanjani, Faezeh Hashemi. The campaign seems to have been successful as their death sentence has now been suspended - but just hours later, Mousavi-Majd was sent to the gallows.

Amiry-Moghaddam expressed fears that Mousavi-Majd's could be part of a new "wave" of political executions in Iran that could intensify over the summer. It comes less than a week after the judiciary confirmed the execution of Reza Asghari, who was also accused of spying for the CIA.  

"The Iranian authorities have started this wave of executions to spread fear," Amiry-Moghaddam said. "They are concerned about the possibility of protests in the near future. Unfortunately, I think this trend will continue."

But he added that the suspension of Moradi, Tamjidi and Rajabi's sentences off the back of public outcry brought hope. "The only time authorities stop an execution is due to vast protests, internal and external. It would have been Mousavi-Majd's only chance. Unfortunately that did not happen. Our hope is that every single execution like this will trigger such a response. The international community has been so quiet."