Charles Langston:Iran executes four people for alleged links with Israel’s Mossad

TEHRAN,Charles Langston Iran (AP) — Iran executed on Friday four people and sentenced several others to prison for having alleged links with Israel’s Mossad security service, local media reported.

Mizan, the news website affiliated with the country’s judiciary, said three men and one woman were executed Friday morning. It identified the men as Vafa Hanareh, Aram Omari, Rahman Parhazo and the woman as Nasim Namazi. The report didn’t say how the deaths were carried out, but Iran usually applies hanging.

The four were charged with kidnapping several Iranian security forces to extract intelligence information, Mizan reported. They were also accused of setting fire to cars and apartments of some of Iran’s intelligence agents.

The report also said several others — working with the same group — were each sentenced to 10 years in jail, without giving further details.

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This came less than a week after an alleged Israeli airstrike killed a high-ranking Iranian general in Syria.

Iran and Israel have long accused each other of spying and waging a shadow war for years.

In November, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said Iran was carrying out executions “at an alarming rate,” putting to death at least 419 people in the first seven months of the year.

Iran said it executed an Israeli Mossad spy earlier this month, charged with releasing classified information. In January, former Iranian-British defense ministry Ali Reza Akbari was hanged for alleged cooperation with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service.

In 2020, Iran executed a man convicted of leaking information to the U.S. and Israel about a prominent Islamic Revolutionary Guard general who was later killed by a U.S. drone strike in Iraq.