Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on the 43rd anniversary of the United States’ expulsion from Iran, November 4, 2022. WANA NEWS AGENCY/ Portal
Four Iranians have been executed after being sentenced to death for “collaborating” with Israel, the Iranian judiciary said Sunday, December 4. “This morning the sentences of four key members of the thugs linked to the Zionist regime’s secret services were carried out,” according to the legal news agency Mizan Online.
On May 22, the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army, announced the arrest of members of “a network acting under the direction of the Israeli intelligence services,” without specifying where they were arrested. “Following the Supreme Court’s final decision, the defendants were sentenced to death for their cooperation with the Zionist regime and for kidnapping,” the judiciary said on Wednesday.
“These people have committed theft, destruction of personal and public property, kidnapping and extracting false confessions,” the Revolutionary Guards statement said in May. According to human rights organizations, Iran is one of the countries in the world that executes the most prisoners, after China.
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Iran has repeatedly announced the arrest of agents working for the intelligence services of other countries, including Israel. In late July, he reported on the arrest of “agents” linked to Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence service for plotting to attack a “sensitive defense center,” claiming they were members of a banned Kurdish rebel group.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has also accused Israel of sabotaging some of its nuclear facilities and assassinating key Iranian figures, including scientists. The two countries have been waging a shadow war for years. Israel accuses Iran of wanting to acquire the atomic bomb and wants to prevent this at all costs. Israel also wants to counter Iran’s influence in the Middle East. In late October, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he had shared information with the United States that Israeli intelligence said showed the use of Iranian drones in the war in Ukraine.
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For his part, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, accused his sworn enemies, the United States and Israel, of fueling the protest movement in Iran sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16. Iran has been the scene of protests since the death of this 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, who died three days after being arrested in Tehran by vice squads who accused her of violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.