Iran hangs a man accused of spying for Israel’s Mossad in a wave of executions

The Iranian authorities said Monday they had hanged a man they accused of spying for Israel, the latest in what is believed to be the largest wave of executions by Tehran in decades, according to activists monitoring human rights issues and the use of the death penalty in the Islamic Republic.

Iran identified the executed man as Bahman Choobiasl. His case hadn’t previously been reported in Iranian state media to activists monitoring human rights issues and the use of the death penalty in the Islamic Republic.

Iranian state media outlet Mizan reported Monday that Choobiasl “had engaged in extensive and deliberate cooperation with the Israeli intelligence service in the field of databases.” CBS News has reached out to Iranian authorities for comment. 

The execution came as Iran vowed to confront what it called its enemies after the United Nations reimposed sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program this weekend. The European Union followed suit Monday, imposing similar sanctions on Iran.

Iran accused Choobiasl of meeting with operatives from the Israeli spy agency Mossad, calling him the agency’s “most trusted” spy. Iran’s Mizan news agency, which is the judiciary’s official mouthpiece, said Choobiasl worked on “sensitive telecommunications projects” and reported about the “paths of importing electronic devices.”

Iran is known to have hanged nine people for espionage since its June war with Israel. Israel carried out 12 days of air strikes on Iran in June, killing at least 1,100 people according to Amnesty International. 

Earlier this month, the Iranian government executed Babak Shahbazi, according to Amnesty International’s Iran chapter, which said in a post on social media that Shahbazi’s execution was “arbitrary” and “horrific.” Tehran had alleged that Shahbazi spied for Israel but human rights activists have disputed that, saying he was tortured into a false confession after he wrote a letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offering to fight for Kyiv. Iran has taken Russia’s side in that conflict, giving its military critical support, including armed drones. 

The Islamic Republic routinely conducts closed-door trials of people accused of espionage and other crimes, with defendants often prevented from seeing or disputing the evidence against them.

Iran has faced multiple nationwide protests in recent years, fueled by anger over the economy, demands for women’s rights and calls for the country’s theocracy to change.

The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights and the Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran put the number of people executed in 2025 at over 1,000, noting the number could be higher as the government does not report on each execution.

United Nations human rights experts also criticized Iran’s executions on Monday

“The sheer scale of executions in Iran is staggering and represents a grave violation of the right to life,” U.N. experts from the Office of the High Commissioner said in a statement Monday. “With an average of more than nine hangings per day in recent weeks, Iran appears to be conducting executions at an industrial scale that defies all accepted standards of human rights protection.” 

The United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran early Sunday on the grounds that it was violating its 2015 agreement to limit its nuclear program, further squeezing the Islamic Republic as growing numbers of Iranians struggle to afford basic needs. 

The sanctions will again freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with Tehran, and penalize any development of Iran’s ballistic missile program, among other measures. It came via a mechanism known as “snapback,” included in Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, and comes as the country’s economy already is reeling.

Iran’s rial currency sits at a record low against the dollar, increasing pressure on food prices and making daily life that much more challenging. 

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