Iran has passed an execution order for an Iranian man convicted of being a "CIA spy". He had been charged with passing sensitive information about the location of slain General Qasem Soleimani to the US. The Iranian judiciary confirmed that the man, identified as Seyed Mahmoud Mousavi Majd, would be executed soon.
Iran's top military General who headed the Quds Force, Soleimani was killed in a drone strike launched by the US on Baghdad airport on January 3.
Majd Was Working With CIA and Mossad
Majd, convicted of working with both the CIA and Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, is believed to be a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. His association with the army is said to have enabled him to gather information on Soleimani's whereabouts, reported the Daily Mail.
The spy reportedly took money from both the US and Israel to leak the information on the Quds intelligence force and Soleimani's locations.
Majd's role in the assassination of Soleimani was revealed for the first time during a judicial press conference organised on Tuesday. The Guardian reported that spokesman for the judiciary Gholamhossein Esmaili confirmed Majd's role in leaking information on Soleimani's movements to the CIA and the Israeli intelligence agency in return for cash.
"Mahmoud Mousavi Majd, one of the spies for the CIA and the Mossad, has been sentenced to death. He had shared information about the whereabouts of martyr Soleimani with our enemies. He passed on security information to the Israeli and American intelligence agencies about Iran's armed forces, particularly the Guards," Esmaili was quoted as saying.
Majd To Be Executed by Hanging
In the drone attack, which took place in the wee hours of January 3, the US targeted the armored vehicles carrying Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Deputy Commander of Iraq's Popular Recruiting Forces (IPRF), outside Baghdad International Airport. Soleimani had arrived in Baghdad on a commercial flight from Syria just 15 minutes before the attack.
In retaliation, Iran launched a series of cruise missiles at a US airbase in Iraq. Though no casualties were reported, the attack caused massive destruction on the base.
According to Radio Farda, Esmaili did not disclose any information about the personal aspects of Majd or what led to his arrest and subsequent trial. The spokesperson revealed that Majd's death sentence passed earlier has been upheld by Branch 19 of the Supreme Court and will soon be carried out.
In a statement issued later, the Iranian authorities said Majd's conviction was not linked to the "terrorist act of the US government" in Suleimani's killing in Baghdad. "All the legal proceedings in the case of this spy had been carried out long before the martyrdom of Suleimani," the statement added, clarifying that Majd was arrested in October 2018. Last December, Iran had announced the arrest of eight people allegedly having links with the CIA.
