ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iranian authorities on Monday executed another prisoner accused of espionage and cooperation with US and Israeli intelligence agencies, according to state-affiliated media, amid a broader crackdown that has seen dozens executed since the start of the war.
“Erfan Shakurzadeh, son of Jafar, was hanged for the crime of collaboration with the American intelligence service and the Mossad spy service,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-affiliated Tasnim News Agency reported on Monday. It added that, according to court documents, he had attempted to provide “classified” information to “enemy services” while working in a sensitive position at one of the country’s scientific organizations involved in satellite technology.
Shakourzadeh, a 29-year-old student at Iran University of Science and Technology in Tehran, was detained in early 2025 by IRGC agents on charges of working with hostile states, according to the Oslo-based Hengaw Human Rights Organization. His family was initially given no clear information about his whereabouts or the case against him.
Hengaw said Shakourzadeh was held in solitary confinement for nine months and subjected to severe torture by IRGC intelligence agents.
Iran has long used the death penalty as a tool of state repression and to stifle dissent. Rights groups say authorities have executed at least two dozen political prisoners since the start of the war on February 28. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that Iran carried out 2,063 executions in 2025 - the highest number recorded in around three and a half decades.
Human rights organizations said Friday that the Supreme Court had upheld Shakourzadeh’s death sentence and that he had been transferred to solitary confinement in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, Alborz province, a move often seen as a sign that an execution is imminent.
State media and IRGC-affiliated outlets did not provide evidence supporting the espionage allegations against Shakourzadeh.