Iran confirmed on Sunday that it has executed an Iranian nuclear scientist who gave the US intelligence about the country’s contested nuclear programme.
The official IRNA news agency quoted a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, Gholamhosein Mohseni Ejehi, confirming the execution of Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist caught up in a real-life US spy mystery who later returned to his home country and disappeared.
He did not say where or when the execution took place, but said Amiri’s initial death sentence had been reviewed by an appeal court and that he had access to a lawyer.
Amiri “provided the eney with vital information of the country,” Ejehi said.
Amiri, who worked for a university affiliated to Iran’s defence ministry, vanished in 2009 while on a
religious pilgrimage to Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia, only to reappear a year later in a set of online videos filmed in the US.