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Iran hangs “Mossad agent’ for scientist killing

Majid Jamali Fashi, accused of assassinating Iranian scientist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, attends his trial at the revolutionary court in Tehran August 23, 2011. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi

(Reuters) – Iran has hanged a man it said was an agent for Israeli

intelligence agency Mossad whom it convicted of killing one of its nuclear scientists in 2010, Iranian

state media reported on Tuesday.

Tehran has accused Israel and the United States of assassinating four Iranian

scientists since 2010 in order to sabotage its nuclear program which the West suspects is hiding

Iran’s attempt to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

While Israel has declined to comment on

the killings, it regards Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat and has threatened military

action against Tehran. Washington has denied any U.S. role.

Twenty-four year old Majid Jamali

Fashi was hanged at Tehran’s Evin Prison after being sentenced to death in August last year for the

murder of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, Iran’s state news agency quoted the central prosecutor’s office as

saying. It said he had confessed to the crime.

Ali-Mohammadi was killed in January 2010 when a

remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle outside his home in Tehran went off.

Tuesday’s

report said Fashi had confessed to travelling to Tel Aviv to receive training from Mossad before

returning to Iran to plot the assassination.

A spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization

said at the time that Ali-Mohammadi, a 50-year-old Tehran University professor, was not involved in its

activities.

The most recent attack on an Iranian scientist occurred in January. Mostafa

Ahmadi-Roshan – a deputy director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility – was killed when a

magnetic bomb planted on his vehicle detonated.

Israel has a policy of not commenting on the

allegations but an unnamed Israeli source previously said the daylight killings provoked panic in

surviving colleagues and generate a phenomenon Mossad veterans dub “virtual defection” which hinders

Iran’s nuclear progress.

Last month, Iranian intelligence officials said they had arrested 15

people they called a “major terror and sabotage network with links to the Zionist regime”. The group

had plotted to assassinate an Iranian scientist in February, the authorities said.

Iranian

officials have also accused Israel of infiltrating neighboring Azerbaijan to organize attacks against

the Islamic Republic.

Unsubstantiated reports in the Iranian media earlier this month said

Israel has pushed for the transfer Of 1,200 members of the exiled Iranian rebel group Mujahideen Khalq

Organization (MKO) from their base in Iraq to Azerbaijan.

Late last year Israel distanced itself

from the MKO’s efforts to be removed from the U.S. terrorism blacklist, saying it did not consider the

group to be “an asset”.

Iran denies Western accusations it is seeking to develop a nuclear

weapons capability, but major powers are pushing Tehran to become more transparent and cooperative

ahead of talks later this month.

Israel says it could attack Iran if it thinks that is the only

way to stop it from getting nuclear arms.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Monday

warned the European Union would impose tougher sanctions on Iran if it failed to take concrete steps to

allay international concerns over its nuclear program.

(Reporting By Marcus George; Editing by

Andrew Osborn and Giles

Elgood)

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