The Islamic Republic Judiciary spokesman, Gholam Hossein Esmaeili says a Revolutionary Court has sentenced “an agent” working for the U.S. spy agency CIA to death, and the country's Supreme Court is reviewing the case for issuing the final verdict.
Esmaeili also announced that the court has also sentenced three others to jail for spying for the U.S.
Speaking to reporters in a press briefing on October 1, Esmaeili asserted that, as the final verdict has not been issued, he could not name the one sentenced to death.
In the meantime, Esmaeili identified the other three convicted as CIA spies as Mohammad-Ali Babapour, Mohammad Amirnassab, and Ali Nafarrieh.
"The three have been sentenced to ten-year jail, each," Esmaeili announced, adding, "The Islamic Republic Supreme court has upheld the verdict against the three."
Furthermore, according to Esameili, Babapour and Nafarrieh must also return 55,000 dollars each which they “had received for their services”.
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Security forces captured the agents spying for the CIA last year, Esmaeili claimed without further elaboration.
Earlier on August 27, the spokesman had also announced that several suspects were arrested for spying activities in favor of Israel.
The Islamic Republic has been notorious for holding ad hoc tribunals and sentencing suspects to death without giving the right to have access to legal counsel.
Most security related and political trials in Iran are held behind closed doors or in complete secrecy. The media, attorneys and the families of the accused have no mechanism available to follow the cases and the trail itself.
"If found innocent later, the executed suspects will directly go to paradise," argued the most notorious judge in the early years of the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran.
Sadeq Khalkhali, known as "Hanging Judge," repeatedly boasted for issuing the death penalty for hundreds of suspects, including the former regime's top military and public figures.
In the meantime, as recently as August 13, a young Iranian businessman Mazyar (Maziar) Ebrahimi told the BBC that Iranian Intelligence Ministry Agents tortured him and eleven others into confessing on TV that they had assassinated a nuclear scientist in collaboration with Israeli secret agents.
Ebrahimi who is now living in Germany said he and other inmates were released from jail after two years when another government body found out during an investigation that the case against them was fabricated by the Intelligence Ministry.
Fifty-two were detained along with Ebrahimi, while all of them were innocent, Tehran's MP, Mahmoud Sadeqi said.