Tehran (AFP) - Iran on Monday executed a former translator convicted of spying for the US and Israel, including helping to locate a top Iranian general killed later by the Americans, the judiciary said.
The killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike near Baghdad airport in January brought decades-old arch enemies Iran and the United States to the brink of conflict.
The judiciary's Mizan Online website said Mahmoud Mousavi Majd's death "sentence was carried out on Monday morning over the charge of espionage so that the case of his betrayal to his country will be closed forever".
Its spokesman said earlier this month that Majd had been sentenced to death for spying on "various security fields, especially the armed forces and the Quds Force and the whereabouts and movements of martyr General Qasem Soleimani".
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Majd had been found guilty of receiving large sums of money from both the US Central Intelligence Agency and Israel's Mossad, said the spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili.
Soleimani headed the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran retaliated against the United States for his death by firing a volley of ballistic missiles at US troops stationed in Iraq, but US President Donald Trump opted against responding militarily.
While the attack on the western Iraqi base of Ain Al-Asad left no US soldiers dead, dozens suffered brain trauma.
'American dollars'
Majd was arrested about two years ago and was not directly involved in the killing of Soleimani, according to a statement the judiciary issued in June.
Majd had migrated to Syria in the 1970s with his family and worked as an English and Arabic language translator at a company, Mizan said.
When war broke out, he chose to stay in the country while his family left.
"His knowledge of Arabic and familiarity with Syria's geography made him close to Iranian military advisers and he took responsibilities in groups stationed from Idlib to Latakia," the site added.
Majd was not a member of the Revolutionary Guards "but infiltrated many sensitive areas under the cover of being a translator".
He was found to have been paid "American dollars to reveal information on adviser convoys, military equipment and communication systems, commanders and their movements, important geographical areas, codes and passwords" until he came under scrutiny and his access was downgraded.
Iranian state television showed footage of what it said was one of Majd's CIA handlers, saying the alarm was raised after the interception of communications between the two.
It also showed Majd in an apparent confession video saying he had received coded messages and reportedly met his handlers with documents, including "photos and identification documents of forces and commanders".
Executions and arrests
According to the report, he had been planning to also work with Saudi Arabia's intelligence services before being detained.
He was arrested in October 2018, Mizan said.
Iran said last week it had executed another man convicted of spying for the CIA by selling information about Iran's missile programme.
Reza Asgari had worked at the defence ministry's aerospace division for years but retired four years ago, after which he sold "information he had regarding our missiles" to the CIA in exchange for large sums of money.
Iran in February handed down a similar sentence for Amir Rahimpour, another man convicted of spying for the US and conspiring to sell information on Iran's nuclear programme.
Tehran announced in December it had arrested eight people "linked to the CIA" and involved in nationwide street protests that erupted the previous month over a surprise petrol price hike.
It also said in July 2019 that it had dismantled a CIA spy ring, arrested 17 suspects between March 2018 and March 2019 and sentenced some of them to death.
Trump at the time dismissed the claim as "totally false".
Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, July 20, 2020
Iran Executes Man Convicted Of Giving U.S. Information On Soleimani
Iran's judiciary said the country has executed a man convicted of providing information to the United States and Israel about a powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander later killed by a U.S. drone strike in Iraq.
"Mahmud Musavi-Majd's sentence was carried out on Monday morning over the charge of espionage so that the case of his betrayal to his country will be closed forever," the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported on July 20.
Iranian authorities in June said Musavi-Majd passed on information about the whereabouts of Qasem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC's elite Quds Force who was killed in a U.S. air strike near Baghdad in January.
The judiciary said last month that Musavi-Majd’s death sentence had been upheld by the Supreme Court and would be carried out “soon.”
The execution came a day after 3 men linked to anti-government protests last November received stays from the death penalty amid a massive social-media campaign calling for Iran to halt state executions.
In retaliation for Soleimani's killing in the early hours of January 3, an Iranian ballistic-missile strike on an Iraqi air base left some 110 U.S. troops suffering from traumatic brain injuries.
Hours later, Iranian forces shot down a Ukrainian passenger airliner taking off from Tehran, killing all 176 people on board. Iran blamed a misaligned missile battery and miscommunication between soldiers and superior officers.
Iranian officials did not say whether Musavi-Majd's case was linked to Iran's announcement in the summer of 2019 that it had captured 17 spies working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
It said some of them had been sentenced to death.
The report comes after Iran’s judiciary announced on July 14 that a former Defense Ministry worker convicted of selling information to the CIA had been executed.
Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said on July 14 that Reza Asgari had been in touch with the CIA during his last years serving at the Defense Ministry and sold the agency information about Iran's missile program.
Esmaili said Asgari was executed a week earlier, adding that he had worked in the aerospace department of the Defense Ministry and retired 4 years ago.
A recent online protest against executions has been joined by many Iranians -- including ordinary citizens as well as intellectuals, former politicians, and prominent artists.
In the face of the protest, Iran's judiciary ordered a retrial for Amir Hossein Moradi, 25, Said Tamjidi, 27, and Mohammad Rajabi, 25.
The 3 were among many who were arrested in a brutal crackdown against demonstrators who took to the streets in dozens of cities and towns across Iran in November 2019.
Analysts said the social-media campaign was unprecedented in its scope and the level of participation of Iranians both within and outside Iran.
Amnesty International recorded 251 executions in Iran during 2019, making Iran second to China in state executions.
Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Staff, July 20, 2020
Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd Executed on Espionage Charges
Due to the lack of transparency in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s judiciary system, particularly in so-called security-related cases, no information is available on Mahmoud’s interrogation, trial and whether he had access to a lawyer
Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd, a man on death row for alleged charges of espionage, has been executed. He was arrested in 2018 and wrongly described by some officials and domestic media as the man who “disclosed Qasem Soleimani’s location”.
According to state media, Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd’s death sentence was carried out this morning, July 20. He was sentenced to death by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran on charges of "espionage for an enemy state." Shortly after the hearing, his sentence was upheld by Branch 19 of the Revolutionary Court.
"Mousavi-Majd was executed on Saturday morning, at 4 am, and the state media is even lying about the time of his execution." an informed source told IHR.
At a press conference held on 10 July 2020, Gholamhossein Esmaili, a spokesperson for the Islamic Republic judiciary, stated that Seyed Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd, son of Seyed Kazem, had been sentenced to death, claiming that "Mousavi-Majd disclosed the former commander of the IRGC Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani’s location of residence and travel routes to foreigners.”
Shortly afterward, the Judiciary Media Centre corrected this claim, stating that Mousavi-Majd's case went back to "long before the commander of the IRGC's Quds Force was killed" and that the initial death sentence had been "issued on 25 August 2019."
Iran Human Rights (IHR) had previously warned of the risk of his imminent execution after he was transferred to an unknown location on July 6.
Due to the lack of transparency in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s judiciary system, particularly in so-called security-related cases, no information is available on Mahmoud’s interrogation, trial and whether he had access to a lawyer.
Defendants accused of security charges are tried and convicted without legal representation by Islamic Revolutionary Courts, which predominantly take place behind closed doors. They would have spent long periods of time under interrogation and pressure in solitary confinement before trial.
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde