Iran hangs a man accused of spying for Israel in a wave of executions
[September 29, 2025]
By JON GAMBRELL
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran said Monday it hanged a man
accused of spying for Israel, the latest in the largest wave of
executions by Tehran in decades.
Iran identified the executed man as Bahman Choobiasl. His case wasn’t
immediately known in Iranian media reports or to activists monitoring
the death penalty in the Islamic Republic.
The execution came as Iran vowed to confront its enemies after the
United Nations reimposed sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program
this weekend. The European Union followed suit Monday, imposing similar
sanctions on Iran.
Iran accused Choobiasl of meeting with officials from the Israeli spy
agency Mossad, calling him the agency's “most trusted” spy. Iran’s Mizan
news agency, which is the judiciary’s official mouthpiece, said
Choobiasl worked on “sensitive telecommunications projects“ and reported
about the “paths of importing electronic devices.”
Iran is known to have hanged nine people for espionage since its June
war with Israel. Israel waged an air war with Iran, killing some 1,100
people, including many military commanders. Iran launched missile
barrages targeting Israel in response.
Earlier this month, Iran executed Babak Shahbazi, who it alleged spied
for Israel. Activists disputed that, saying Shahbazi was tortured into a
false confession after writing a letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy offering to fight for Kyiv.
Iran routinely conducts closed-door trials of those accused of
espionage, with the suspects often unable to access the evidence against
them.
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Iran has faced multiple nationwide protests in recent years, fueled
by anger over the economy, demands for women’s rights and calls for
the country’s theocracy to change.
In response to those protests and the June war, Iran has been
putting prisoners to death at a pace unseen since 1988, when it
executed thousands at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.
The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights and the Washington-based
Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran put the number
of people executed in 2025 at over 1,000, noting the number could be
higher as Iran does not report on each execution.
Independent human rights experts at the United Nations also
criticized Iran's executions Monday.
“The sheer scale of executions in Iran is staggering and represents
a grave violation of the right to life,” the experts said. “With an
average of more than nine hangings per day in recent weeks, Iran
appears to be conducting executions at an industrial scale that
defies all accepted standards of human rights protection.”
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Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed
to this report.
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