Iran hangs man it accuses of spying for Israel as Tehran continues wave of executions

Iran said Monday it hanged a man accused of spying for Israel, the latest as Tehran carries out its largest wave of executions in decades.

Iran identified the executed man as Bahman Choobiasl, whose case wasn’t immediately known in Iranian media reports or to activists monitoring the death penalty in the Islamic Republic. However, the execution came after Iran vowed to confront its enemies after the United Nations reimposed sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program this weekend.

Iran accused Choobiasl of meeting with officials from the Israeli spy agency Mossad. 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 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.

Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

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