Iran executed two men by hanging on Saturday after its judiciary convicted them of espionage on behalf of Israel’s foreign intelligence service, Mossad, the latest in a sustained wave of executions linked to national security charges following the two countries’ conflict last year.
The judiciary’s official outlet, Mizan Online, confirmed the deaths of Yaghoub Karimpour and Naser Bakrzadeh, stating their sentences had been upheld by the Supreme Court and carried out at dawn. The executions took place in West Azerbaijan province in northwestern Iran.
Mizan said Karimpour was convicted of moharebeh, an Arabic term meaning waging war against God, a capital offence under Iranian law. Authorities alleged he filmed and photographed security and military locations inside Iran and transmitted that information to a Mossad officer during Iran’s 12-day war with Israel in June 2025. According to additional reports citing Xinhua, Karimpour used the Telegram messaging application to relay the material and received payment in cryptocurrency. Authorities further alleged he carried out sound explosions and submitted deliberately false intelligence reports to security institutions in western Iran to mislead them.
Bakrzadeh was accused of cooperating with Mossad by gathering information on prominent religious and provincial figures and on sensitive sites, including locations in the Natanz area, home to one of Iran’s key nuclear facilities. The 26-year-old, described by human rights organisations as a Kurdish political prisoner, had reportedly had his death sentence overturned multiple times before the Supreme Court upheld it earlier this year. Shortly before his execution, Bakrzadeh released a final letter from prison in which he maintained his innocence and said he was being targeted because of his Kurdish and Sunni identity.
Human rights organisations have raised serious concerns about both cases. The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights and the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) alleged that Karimpour and Bakrzadeh were subjected to physical and psychological torture to extract confessions used as the basis for their convictions. Rights groups noted that Karimpour, a follower of the Yarsan faith and a law graduate, was denied access to legal counsel and family visits during his detention.
The two executions followed a separate hanging on Thursday of a man identified as Sasan Azadvar, who was put to death after being convicted of attacking police officers during anti-government demonstrations earlier this year.
As previously reported by NewsGhana, Iran has carried out a string of executions on espionage charges since its June 2025 conflict with Israel, with at least 10 people executed on such grounds by September 2025 alone. Saturday’s hangings signal that the campaign continues into 2026 despite sustained international condemnation.
Iran routinely conducts closed proceedings in national security cases, with defendants frequently unable to access evidence presented against them. Israeli authorities have not commented on the executions.
