#Iran says it will execute man for giving US intel on Soleimani

Iran has sentenced an alleged spy to death for providing US and Israeli intelligence agencies with material information on the whereabouts of Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Soleimani before his killing.

Speaking at a televised news conference Tuesday, Iran’s judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said that “Mahmoud Mousavi Majd, one of the spies for the CIA and the Mossad, has been sentenced to death.”

Majd, according to the spokesman, was guilty of sharing information “about the whereabouts of martyr Soleimani with our enemies.”

The suspect also was also guilty of passing on “security information to the Israeli and American intelligence agencies about Iran’s armed forces, particularly the Guards.”

Not many details can be confirmed about Majd. He has only been described as an Iranian national.

When asked for more information, Esmaili did not directly link the intelligence gathered by Majd to Soleimani’s killing. He did, however, accuse Majd of spying on other Iranian security agencies, including the armed forces, in exchange for US funds.

A later statement released by Esmaili’s team admitted that Majd’s arrest was, in fact, in October 2018. Soleimani was killed by a US drone strike in Iraq in January 2020.

The missile attack, ordered by President Donald Trump, took out Soleimani and six others while at Baghdad Airport in Iraq.

The move exacerbated already-high tensions between the US and Iran, whose relationship continued to deteriorate over the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear capabilities after the US withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

President Trump has stood by his decision to take out Soleimani, arguing that the Iranian military leader was planning an “imminent” attack against the US by blowing up four different embassies.

His killing, the commander-in-chief argued, thwarted those attacks.

Iran has vowed revenge for the killing for months, though little action has been taken. With the coronavirus pandemic in full swing, fighting between the two nations was forced to pause.

Back in April, Iran called on the White House to lift sanctions in an effort to help stop the spread of the virus.

In response, the State Department asserted that all sanctions on the Middle Eastern country were unrelated to coronavirus response efforts.

“We have repeatedly said that US sanctions do not impede the Iranian regime’s response to the Covid-19 crisis,” State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus said at the time.

The department also accused Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of flatly rejecting an offer from the US for humanitarian assistance at the time.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani denied this claim, saying, “American leaders are lying…If they want to help Iran, all they need to do is to lift sanctions…Then we can deal with the coronavirus outbreak.”

With Post wires