Tehran Executes Four People It Says Spied for Israel, State News Reports

Iranian authorities executed four people Sunday accused of working for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, the state-run IRNA news agency said.

IRNA said the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard announced the arrests of a network of people linked to the Israeli agency. It said members stole and destroyed private and public property and kidnapped individuals and interrogated them.

The report said the alleged spies had weapons and received wages from Mossad in the form of cryptocurrency.

IRNA identified the executed prisoners as Hossein Ordoukhanzadeh, Shahin Imani Mahmoudabadi, Milad Ashrafi and Manouchehr Shahbandi.

The four were sentenced to death last Wednesday by Iran's judiciary for allegedly cooperating with the Israeli intelligence service and committing kidnappings, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

Mehr named the four accused and, referring to Israel, said they were "sentenced to death for the crime of cooperating with the intelligence services of the Zionist regime and for kidnapping."

It added: "With guidance from the Zionist intelligence service, this network of thugs was stealing and destroying private and public property, kidnapping people, and obtaining fake confessions."

Three other people were handed prison sentences of between five and 10 years for allegedly committing crimes such as acting against national security, aiding in kidnapping, and possessing illegal weapons, it said.

The Islamic Republic has long accused arch-enemy Israel of carrying out covert operations on its soil. Tehran has lately accused Israeli and Western intelligence services of plotting a civil war in the country, now gripped by some of the biggest anti-government protests since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.