Tehran executes four Kurds convicted of spying for Israeli intelligence agency

Iran executed four Kurds it claimed had spied for Israel and conspired to bomb a weapons plant in Isfahan.

The death sentences of Mohammad Faramarzi, Mohsen Mazloum, Wafa Azarbar and Pejman Fatehi were upheld by the Supreme Court, the judiciary’s Mizan news said.

The men were convicted of working for Israeli intelligence.

Prosecutors said they met Mossad chief David Barnea and travelled into Iran through the Kurdish region of Iraq.

They were arrested in connection with a plot to bomb a weapons plant belonging to the Defence Ministry in Isfahan, Mizan said. The executions yesterday came days after Iran executed a protester convicted of killing a police officer during the 2022 wave of demonstrations against the death in morality police custody of Mahsa Amini.

Human rights groups said the men were all Kurdish prisoners of conscience and were detained on vague charges and tried in secret.

“Their case, marred by ambiguity, saw a lack of access to legal representation throughout their 18-month detention,” said the Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights, which monitors human rights in the Kurdish areas of Iran.

“Even by the standards of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the minimum requirements for a fair trial were not met in their case. The proceedings of the case were shrouded in complete secrecy.”

The organisation said the men were permitted to meet their families on Sunday, for the first time since their arrest.

Relatives appealed for clemency at the weekend, and their mothers wrote to UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al Nashif, scheduled to visit Iran next month, to call for their release.

Tehran accused the men of belonging to the Komala party, an exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition group based in the Kurdistan Region.

The group has officially denied the men were members, Hengaw said.