After being found guilty and convicted of spying for the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a former Iranian defense ministry staffer has been executed, the country's judiciary disclosed on Tuesday.
Iranian citizen Reza Asgari was executed last week for selling sensitive information about Tehran's missile program, Gholamhossein Esmaili, spokesperson for the Islamic Republic judiciary said, as per Iran's official Mizan Online News Agency. Asgari served in the aerospace department before he retired some four years ago, Esmaili said.
According to Esmaili, in the last years of Asgari's service, "he joined the CIA, sold information about our missiles ... to the CIA and received money from them. He tried and sentenced to death," the Associated Press reported.
Separately, Esmaili said that among those still to be carried out is a death sentence for Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd, an Iranian accused of spying for the US and Israeli intelligence.
The judiciary divulged last month that Mousavi-Majd, who was arrested in 2018, had spied on former Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani, but added that the case was not related to Soleimani's murder earlier this year.
A U.S. drone strike in Iraq on January 3 killed Soleimani, leader of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards. Washington had accused Soleimani of being the brains behind attacks on U.S. military personnel in the area by Iran-aligned militias.
Iran retaliated by unleashing rockets at U.S. soldiers deployed at the Ain Al-Asad base in Iraq. No American soldiers died in the attack and U.S. President Donald Trump decided not to retaliate using military force.
Asgari is the second former defense ministry staffer of Iran to be executed in the past month over spying allegations. Tehran disclosed Jalal Hajizavar was hanged in prison last June after he admitted in court that he was paid to spy for the CIA.
Based on the report, authorities had also confiscated espionage devices from Hajizavar's residence. It stated the court sentenced Hajizavar's wife to 15 years in prison for her involvement in the espionage. Prior to that, in 2016, Tehran executed a nuclear scientist convicted of spying for the US.
In 2019, Iran said it had arrested 17 spies it claimed were working for the CIA. The judiciary also disclosed Tuesday it had executed two people responsible for a bombing during a military parade in Iran in 2010, the official IRNA news agency revealed.
The Iranian judiciary spokesperson added the supreme court had upheld death sentences for three men who were convicted of conducting violent acts like burning banks and buses during anti-government protests last November.
