Iranian nuclear scientist hanged as US spy

Iran has executed a nuclear scientist who gave the US intelligence about the country's nuclear capacity.

Shahram Amiri was convicted of spying charges as he "provided the enemy with vital information of the country", said Gholamhosein Mohseni Ejehi, a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary.

Mr Amiri had access to classified information “and he was linked to our hostile and number one enemy, or the Great Satan,” said Mr Ejehi, referring to the US.

Mr Ejehi did not explain why authorities never announced Mr Amiri’s conviction or his failed appeals court bid, but he said the scientist had access to lawyers.

The scientist was hanged the same week as Tehran executed a group of militants, a year after his country agreed to a landmark accord to limit uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

US officials in 2010 said they paid Mr Amiri $5 million to offer the CIA information about Iran’s nuclear programme, though he left the country without the money.

Defected

He defected to the US in 2009 and returned to the Islamic Republic under mysterious circumstances a year later, said authorities who acknowledged for the first time that they secretly detained, tried and convicted a man they once heralded as a hero.

Mr Amiri vanished in 2009 while on a religious pilgrimage to Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia, reappearing a year later in a series of online videos filmed in the US.

He then walked into the Iranian interests section at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and demanded to be sent home.

In interviews, Mr Amiri described being kidnapped and held by Saudi and American spies. US officials said he was to receive millions of dollars for his help in understanding Iran’s nuclear programme.

Mr Ejehi said: “He neither repented nor compensated and he was trying to leak some information from inside prison, too.”

On Tuesday, Iran said it had executed a number of criminals, mainly militants from the country’s Kurdish minority. – (Reuters)