Iran executes man accused of serving to Israel kill colonel in Revolutionary Guards | Iran

Iran has executed a 36-year-old man it accused of serving to the Mossad, Israel’s international intelligence company, kill a senior officer within the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Tehran in 2022.

Iranian state media mentioned Mohsen Langarneshin was hanged, the standard technique of execution in Iran, at Ghezel Hesar jail early on Wednesday morning.

Langarneshin’s household and human rights teams insisted the previous IT advisor was harmless of the costs towards him and that any reported confessions have been obtained by torture or blackmail.

On Tuesday, Langarneshin’s mom made an emotional enchantment for his life to be spared. “Please pray for my baby … I have no idea if he’ll see the dawn tomorrow or not,” she mentioned in a put up on social media.

“I don’t know why the court docket refuses to simply accept any of the paperwork and proof we convey. We now have so many items of proof that show his innocence, however nothing is accepted.”

Based on Iran’s state information company IRNA, Langarneshin was a “senior spy” for the Mossad who supplied important “technical help” for the assassination of Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, a colonel within the Revolutionary Guards who was shot 5 instances by gunmen on a motorcycle outdoors his residence in Tehran, in addition to for different alleged operations.

The IRNA report mentioned the Mossad recruited Langarneshin in 2020 and that he met with Israeli intelligence officers in Georgia and Nepal. He was arrested in July 2023.

Activists worry that Iran scapegoats harmless individuals after failing to catch the precise brokers who’ve typically escaped abroad by the point investigators determine them.

“Mohsen Langarneshin, who was sentenced to dying in an unfair judicial course of based mostly on confessions obtained below torture and charged with espionage for Israel, was hanged at daybreak in the present day,” mentioned Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) monitor.

“The Iranian authorities’ execution machine is accelerating day-after-day, taking the lives of extra individuals,” he mentioned, describing the executions as “extrajudicial killings”.

No less than 335 individuals have been hanged in Iran to date this yr alone, campaigners say. Iran executed greater than 900 individuals in 2025. A person was executed in December 2023 after he was discovered responsible of collaborating with the Mossad. 4 others have been hanged a yr earlier over alleged ties to Israel.

The US-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Heart, which had campaigned over his case, mentioned Langarneshin had been convicted at a revolutionary court docket presided over by choose Abolghasem Salavati, sanctioned by the US and EU and infamous for his handing out of dying sentences.

“He denied all prices, stating that his confessions have been extracted below torture,” the group mentioned.

The revolutionary courts have been arrange after the 1979 revolution and ship typically abstract justice in closed hearings.

Israel and Iran have been engaged in a shadow struggle of assassinations and bombings for many years. A collection of assaults attributed to the Mossad has focused Iranian scientists, specialists and lecturers, many related to Iran’s nuclear programme. Final yr, Israel is believed to have killed Ismail Haniyeh, probably the most senior political chief of Hamas, with a bomb in a bed room of a authorities guesthouse in Tehran

In Israel, a 72-year-old man was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years in jail accused of discussing plots with Iranian intelligence providers to assassinate senior authorities officers, together with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The hanging comes because the US president, Donald Trump, seeks to strike a brand new cope with the Iranian management on its nuclear programme, with each Israel and its ally the US lengthy refusing to rule out a army strike on Iran.

The Iranian international minister, Abbas Araghchi, mentioned on Wednesday that Iran anticipated the following spherical of negotiations with the US to be held in Rome on Saturday, including that Iran additionally anticipated having a gathering on Friday with France, Germany and the UK to debate the talks.