Iran Sentences Accused CIA Spy to Death
Iran has sentenced one person to death and two others to spend time in prison after they were accused of spying for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Iran’s Supreme Court confirmed to state media Amir Rahimpour’s death sentence for allegedly attempting to pass information about Iran’s nuclear program to the United States, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
“While being in touch with the spy agency, he earned a lot of money as wages as he tried to deliver some information from Iran’s nuclear program to the American agency,” judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told state-run IRNA.
Esmaili added that Rahimpour “will be punished soon.”
Two other accused CIA spies were sentenced to 15 years of jail time, Reuters reported.
“Two … CIA spies who were working under the cover of an organization and charitable foundation have been identified, tried and sentenced to 10 years in prison for spying and five years in prison for acting against national security,” Esmaili said.
The names of these individuals have not yet been released because, according to Esmaili, their sentence has not been finalized.
The CIA has not made a statement on the charges as of Tuesday morning.
This is not the first time that Iran has sentenced an accused American spy to death.
The last executed accused spy was Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist who claimed in 2010 he had been kidnapped and interrogated by the CIA after he disappeared while taking a pilgrimage to Mecca in 2009, according to BBC.
Although he said he was put under “intense psychological pressure to reveal sensitive information,” U.S. officials said Amiri had defected and provided “useful information.”
Amiri returned to Iran and received a hero’s welcome but was later arrested for treason.
In August 2016, Amiri’s mother said the family received his body with rope marks around his neck and the Iranian government confirmed he had been executed.
The nuclear scientist had been discussed during former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email scandal because his name had been included in some of the compromised data before his death, the Washington Examiner reported at the time.
“I’m not going to comment on what he may or may not have done for the United States government, but in the emails that were on Hillary Clinton’s private server, there were conversations among her senior advisors about the gentleman,” Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said.
The news of the latest death sentence comes during a time of increased tensions between Iran and the United States.
After President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3, an Iranian lawmaker reportedly placed a $3 million bounty on the U.S. president.
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