Five Iranians Sentenced To Death For Allegedly Spying For Israel

Five Iranians from the northwestern city of Urmia have been sentenced to death on charges of spying for Israel, activists say.

Hengaw, a Norway-based group that monitors rights violations in Iran's Kurdish regions, said on March 23 that the four men and one woman were sentenced this month by the Revolutionary Court in Urmia.

It said Nasim Namazi, Wafa Hanareh, Aram Omari Bardiani, Rahman Parhazo and Mansour Rasouli were found guilty of "participation in intelligence cooperation and espionage for the benefit of Israel."

Five other defendants in the case were handed 10-year prison terms.

The interrogation of Rasouli by agents for the Mossad security service in Iran made headlines last year.

Israeli media reported in 2022 that Mossad agents captured and interrogated a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps inside Iran.

A video was later released in which a person who identified himself as Rasouli admitted he wanted to assassinate an Israeli diplomat working in the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, a US general stationed in Germany and a journalist in France.

Iranian officials claim Israeli and Western intelligence services are plotting a civil war in the country, which has been gripped by nationwide protests for more than six months.

In November, Iranian media reported that four people had been sentenced to death for allegedly “cooperating” with Mossad.