Iran sentences four alleged spies to death, cooperated with ‘Zionist regime’

“Without going into too many details, I can tell you the Mossad had many successes in the fight against Iran’s nuclear program,” the former Mossad chief said.

By Debbie Reiss, World Israel News

Four people were sentenced to death on Wednesday in Iran after being accused of cooperating with Israel’s Mossad spy agency, Iranian media reported.

According to the state-affiliated Mehr news agency, the four even conducted kidnappings on behalf of the Mossad.

Iran periodically arrests Iranian nationals with charges of spying for Israel.

According to Mehr, the four were arrested by Revolutionary Guards as well as by the Ministry of Intelligence and “sentenced to death for the crime of cooperating with the intelligence services of the Zionist regime and for kidnapping.”

“With guidance from the Zionist intelligence service, this network of thugs was stealing and destroying private and public property, kidnapping people, and obtaining fake confessions,” the news agency added.

Three other alleged collaborators were handed down 5-10-year prison sentences for a range of crimes including acting against national security, cooperation in kidnapping, and possessing illegal weapons, the report said.

Iranian authorities have blamed the Mossad, together with the CIA and Saudi intelligence agencies, for orchestrating the nationwide protests sweeping the country.

The spy agencies “planned extensively to launch a nationwide riot in Iran with the aim of committing crimes against the great nation of Iran and its territorial integrity, as well as laying the groundwork for the intensification of external pressures,” a regime statement read last month.

“This sinister plan, is a plan hatched … in the White House and the Zionist regime,” IRGC commander Hossein Salami said at the time.

Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen in August acknowledged that under his tenure, Israel had carried out “countless operations” in the heart of Iran against its nuclear program.

“Without going into too many details, I can tell you the Mossad had many successes in the fight against Iran’s nuclear program,” Cohen said. “We operated around the world and on Iranian soil itself, in the very heartland of the ayatollahs.”

A month earlier, Iranian media claimed that it had busted an Israeli spy network that was in advanced stages of a plan to blow up a nuclear facility in the country.