Iran executes nuclear scientist suspected of selling classified information to US

Iran confirmed today that it had executed a scientist suspected of providing the United States with information about its controversial nuclear program.

Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri. Photo: AFP

Iran's judiciary spokesman, Gholamhosein Mohseni Ejehi, said the nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri had been executed. Amiri, suspected of being involved in a US intelligence secret, had returned to Iran and then disappeared, the IRNA news agency reported.

Mr Ejehi did not specify where or when the execution took place but stressed that an appeals court had thoroughly reviewed Amiri's death sentence and that he had access to a lawyer.

Amiri "provided the opponents with important information of the country," Ejehi said.

Amiri, who worked for a university with ties to Iran’s Defense Ministry, disappeared in 2009 while on a pilgrimage to a Muslim holy site in Saudi Arabia. He reappeared about a year later, but only in videos filmed in the United States. He went to the Iranian interests section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington and asked to return home, according to AP.

In interviews, Amiri has said he was kidnapped and held illegally by Saudi and American spies. However, US officials say Amiri received millions of dollars in exchange for information about Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

"I am simply a researcher working at the university," Amiri said in July 2010 upon his return to Tehran. "I am not involved in any secret work. I do not possess top secret information."

News of Amiri has been sparse since his return to Iran. Last year, his father told BBC Persian that his son was being held in an undisclosed location.

It is not yet clear what prompted Iranian authorities to decide to execute the scientist.

In 2010, several US officials told the AP that Amiri had received $5 million to provide the CIA with information about Iran's nuclear program. According to them, Amiri had participated in a project to detect radiation. He stayed in the US voluntarily without being forced. But when he returned to Iran, Amiri said US and Saudi officials kidnapped him while he was visiting the Saudi city of Medina.

According to VNE