U.S. Spy Executed, CIA Espionage Network Smashed, Iran Declares

Iran said today it executed a spy for the United States and smashed an espionage network cooperating with the CIA.

Tehran’s military prosecutor, Hojatoleslam Mohammed Niazi, said the group passed information to Washington about organizations linked to Iran’s armed forces.

Niazi, quoted by the official Iranian news agency IRNA, said the executed spy, Seyyed Mohammed Ali Shahbukhari, was a national of a “neighboring country.”

Niazi said the network operated during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war and that its agents continued to spy after the cease-fire in August, 1988, IRNA reported.

The prosecutor did not say when the man was executed but said a military tribunal sentenced him to death and the Supreme Court approved the verdict.

Other members of the spy group have been arrested, he said.

IRNA said security forces uncovered the network while searching for a military offender. Several groups involved in corrupt activities were smashed, IRNA said.

Niazi said Tehran municipal officials and staff from the passport office were arrested. The city officials had so far confessed to taking $50 million at the official exchange rate in cash and 850 gold coins, each worth about $1,900.

Iran’s Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahiyan said in August that security services had uncovered five pro-U.S. spy networks and that more people would be detained as a result of confessions.