Iran executes aerospace student accused of spying for CIA, Mossad

Iran hanged Erfan Shakourzadeh, a 29-year-old aerospace student and engineer, after its judiciary said he was convicted of collaborating with the CIA and Israel’s Mossad. The execution, carried out Monday, followed a death sentence that Iran’s Supreme Court upheld, according to state-linked reports.

Iranian officials said Shakourzadeh had contact with Mossad and the CIA in three stages and passed classified information while working at one of the country’s scientific centers in the satellite field. That framing fits a familiar pattern in Tehran’s national-security cases, where espionage accusations against suspects are often paired with allegations of foreign subversion and presented as proof of state vigilance rather than as cases tested in open court.

Rights groups challenged that account. Iran Human Rights and Hengaw said Shakourzadeh rejected the charges in a prison message, describing them as fabricated. Hengaw said he was detained by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps agents in early 2025, kept in solitary confinement for nine months and denied a final family visit before he was executed at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj. Human rights advocates also said his confession was extracted under torture and that he was denied a fair trial. Iranian authorities did not publicly address those allegations in detail.

Shakourzadeh was identified by rights monitors as a graduate of electrical engineering from the University of Tabriz and a master’s student in aerospace engineering at Iran University of Science and Technology. HRANA said he had been active in a scientific organization working in the satellite field, a detail that underscores how closely Iran’s security apparatus watches strategic technology sectors tied to the country’s space and defense ambitions.

The execution came as Iran faces mounting scrutiny over its use of capital punishment. Amnesty International said Iranian authorities had executed more than 1,000 people in 2025, the highest annual figure the group has recorded in at least 15 years. United Nations human rights officials, including special rapporteur Mai Sato and the U.N. rights office, have warned in recent months about escalating repression, secret executions and expedited proceedings tainted by torture allegations.

Shakourzadeh’s case also arrives at a moment of heightened regional tension after the June 2025 hostilities and the crackdown that followed. For Tehran, executions in espionage cases send a dual message: domestically, that the state claims to be policing infiltration; internationally, that it is willing to answer pressure and conflict with lethal force. For critics, they highlight how opaque national-security prosecutions can become tools of deterrence as much as instruments of justice.