Iran Executes Four Prisoners For Alleged Links To Israel

The Islamic Republic's regime has executed four Kurdish political prisoners that it accused of involvement in a plot to bomb an Iranian defense facility.

The four prisoners, Pejman Fatehi, Mohsen Mazloum, Mohammad (Hazhir) Faramarzi and Wafa Azarbar, were executed in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, west of Tehran, on Monday morning (local time), according to the Islamic Republic's Judiciary.

Their families had earlier been summoned to Evin Prison for a meeting in a sign of imminent execution. They were later transferred to Ghezel Hesar to be hanged.

Iran's Intelligence Ministry had announced their arrest in mid-2022, claiming that they had "illegally entered Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan and intended to bomb a Defense Ministry facility used for producing equipment."

The Judiciary's website said in a statement on Monday that they had been recruited by Israel's Mossad through the Kurdish group Komala to bomb the Defense Ministry facility in Najafabad, Isfahan Province, on July 23, 2022.

"In order to get prepared for the operation, they were sent to African countries several times and were trained in their military bases in the presence of Mossad officers," the Judiciary's news agency said.

"Even the Mossad chief David Barnea participated in one of the training sessions and delivered a speech to boost their morale," the Judiciary's report claimed.

The Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO strongly condemned the execution of the four political prisoners and called on the international community to break its silence regarding the wave of executions in Iran.

The NGO also called on Nada Al-Nashif, the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, to cancel her upcoming trip to Iran in protest to the executions.

Mahmoud Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of Iran Human Rights NGO, said, "The execution of these four prisoners was based on confessions obtained under torture and without a fair trial, and are considered extrajudicial killings for which Khamenei and the corrupt judiciary of the Islamic Republic must be held accountable."

He further noted that "the international community must show a practical response to the rampant and daily executions by the Islamic Republic, and the smallest response from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to these executions would be the cancellation of Nada Al-Nashif's trip to Iran and cessation of dialogue with the authorities of the Islamic Republic."

Footage aired on state television in October and December 2022, purportedly depicted the four men confessing to planning a bomb attack near the central city of Esfahan, allegedly under Israeli intelligence guidance. Political and security prisoners in Iran are denied transparent and fair trials, often without their own defense attorneys.

The Islamic Republic, which has the highest rate of executions in the world after China, has executed 90 people just from December 22 to January 21.

In a recent revelation, UN experts disclosed that at least 834 people were executed in Iran in 2023, with eight of them linked to nationwide protests. The experts urgently called on the Iranian government to halt the surge of executions and undertake a comprehensive review of the use of the death penalty.