Less than a week after Iran’s supreme court affirmed their death sentence, four Iranians accused of intelligence cooperation with Israel were put to death on Sunday.
The penalties were executed in the early morning, according to Mizan News, which is connected to the nation’s judiciary.
According to the judiciary, the defendants were accused of “destroying private and public property, kidnappings, and extracting false confessions.”
They were identified as Milad Ashrafi Atbatan, Manouchehr Shahbandi Bejandi, Shahin Imani Mahmoudabad, and Hossein Ordukhanzadeh.
On allegations of “crime against the country’s security, aiding in kidnapping, and possession of firearms,” three other defendants in the case received prison sentences ranging from 5 to 10 years.
These guys were reportedly detained in a joint operation by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the intelligence ministry in June of this year, according to Iranian state media citing judiciary officials.
A lower court gave four of them death sentences, which the top court later overturned. The verdicts were upheld by the supreme court last week, clearing the path for their executions.
The murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, while in the care of morality police in recent months has led to protracted protests across Iran.
Iran has recently accused its arch-enemy Israel of using local spies to conduct espionage and sabotage operations at important nuclear, military, and industrial installations.
After leading Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in an operation on the outskirts of Tehran in November 2022, which Tehran blamed on Israel, tensions between the two nations grew.
Israel has also claimed that Iran’s spy agencies had planned to target Israeli nationals abroad.