[46806] Iran executed two political prisoners on charges of spying for Israel
Iran executed two men on charges of "spying for the Mossad"
The news agency of the Judiciary in Iran reported today, May 2, 2026, the execution of two prisoners, Yaghoub Karim-Pour and Nasser Boukharzadeh, after they were convicted of "intelligence cooperation and espionage for the Mossad and the Zionist regime." According to the official version distributed by media outlets affiliated with the regime, such as Sepah Pasdaran and IRNA Agency, Boukharzadeh was accused of collecting information on government figures and sensitive facilities, including the Natanz site, while Karim-Pour was accused of transferring sensitive information over a long period.
Conversely, human rights organizations and opposition media present a completely different picture. The Hengaw organization, as reported in Deutsche Welle in Persian, stated that the executions were carried out secretly at the central prison in Urmia. Sources close to the prisoners' families noted that Boukharzadeh and Karim-Pour were forced to confess under torture and that they did not receive a fair legal process. Iran International cited lawyer Amir Raisian, who noted that the Supreme Court upheld the sentence despite substantive legal flaws and previous violations of the trial procedure.
Amnesty International issued a sharp warning following the event, calling on the international community to act decisively to stop the wave of executions in Iran. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Iran Human Rights, claimed in an interview with Deutsche Welle that the regime uses the death penalty as a tool for intimidation and the suppression of internal protests, while exploiting the global distraction due to the wars in the region.
Additional bodies, including the National Council of Iran and opposition organizations such as Payam Iran, defined the executions as political murder and noted that this is a pattern of behavior by the regime, which uses security accusations as a cover for eliminating dissidents.