Iran hangs aerospace engineer over spying for CIA and Mossad

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - DUBAI — Iran said on Monday it had hanged a man convicted of spying for Mossad and the CIA, the latest in a wave of executions during its war against the United States and Israel.

“Erfan Shakourzadeh … was hanged for collaborating with the US intelligence service and the Mossad spy service,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.

It did not specify when he was executed or when he was arrested, but said he worked at one of Iran’s “scientific organizations active in the satellite field”.

The execution comes days after human rights organizations published a note the 29-year-old aerospace engineer had purportedly written from prison in which he said his confession had been extracted under torture.

Shakourzadeh, born in 1996, studied electrical engineering at the University of Tabriz before graduating first in his class in the master's program in Aerospace Engineering and Satellite Technology at Iran University of Science and Technology.

He had been regarded as one of the country's leading young talents in the aerospace field and was working at a scientific organisation specialising in satellites when IRGC intelligence detained him in February 2025.

Mizan described Shakourzadeh as "a joint CIA and Mossad spy," saying he had been recruited "as a project and due to his expertise."

The judiciary said he had attempted to contact Mossad and the CIA "in three stages" and had passed classified information to foreign intelligence services.

No details of the evidence against Shakourzadeh or the legal proceedings were made public before his execution.

In his note smuggled out of prison, Shakourzadeh denied the charges and said he had confessed under duress.

"I am Erfan Shakourzadeh, 29, one of the few so-called elites who refused to emigrate," he wrote.

"A few months before the 12-day conflict, I was detained by the IRGC intelligence on trumped-up charges of espionage and collaboration with enemy countries (at war with Iran), and I was forced to make a confession during eight and a half months of torture and solitary confinement."

Human rights organizations reported he was transferred on Friday to Qezel Hesar prison in the central Iranian city of Karaj ahead of his execution.

He had previously been held at the Evin Prison in Tehran following his arrest.

His execution brings to nearly 30 the number of people hanged by Iran in recent weeks on charges related to alleged political activity, security offences and the January protests.