Iran executes prisoner on spying charges for Israel as war drags on

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran executed a man on Wednesday accused of spying for Israel following days of threats by Iranian officials against any public discontent as the US and Israel continued their air campaign against the regime in Tehran on the 19th day of the war. 

The execution comes hours after Tehran admitted that Ali Larijani, the most powerful official after late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Tehran on Monday. 

Iranian security services have detained hundreds of people for posting photos and videos of the aftermath of airstrikes carried out by Israel and the US since February 28.

Iran judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei threatened on Tuesday that anyone who collaborated with Israel and the US during the war would be executed for spying.  

State media claimed that Korosh Keyvani was trained by Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad for two years before he was sent back to Iran last year. He was detained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) agents and charged with spying for Israel. 

Iran carried out at least 1,639 executions last year including some execution in public squares across the country, according to a rights group. 

Tehran has been repeatedly accused by human rights organisations of hanging people tried in unfair and secretive trials on prompted charges of spying for Israel and the United States. 

Mai Sato, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran on Monday warned about the deepening human rights situation in Iran. 

The US and Israel have carried out close to 10,000 strikes across Iran over the last 19 days of the air campaign and in the process hundreds of civilians have been killed, including at least 168 people mostly schoolgirls in a school in the southern city of Minab.

Larijani, the Secretary of Iran's powerful Supreme National Security council, and the head of the country’s feared Basij organisation Gholam Reaza Soleimani were killed on Monday in two separate airstrikes.