Tehran claims Mahmoud Mousavi Majd gave CIA and Mossad info on ‘whereabouts and movements’ of Iranian general, who was killed in US drone strike in January
By Agencies, 09-06-2020
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran announced on Tuesday that it will execute a man convicted of allegedly providing information to the US and Israel about prominent Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in an American drone strike in Baghdad in January.
Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili offered little information about the convicted man, beyond giving his name as Mahmoud Mousavi Majd.
However, it immediately raised questions about how Majd would have had access to Soleimani’s travel information. Esmaili accused Majd of sharing security information on the Guard and its expeditionary unit, called the Quds, or Jerusalem, Force, which Soleimani commanded.
Majd was “linked to the CIA and the Mossad,” the Israeli intelligence agency, Esmaili alleged, without providing evidence. Neither intelligence agency could be immediately reached for comment.
Esmaili did not say when Majd would be executed, other than that it would be “soon.” He also stopped short of directly linking the information allegedly offered by Majd to Soleimani’s death.
Majd was convicted of spying on Iran’s armed forces “especially the Quds Force and on the whereabouts and movements of martyr General Qasem Soleimani” for large sums of money from both Israel’s Mossad and the US Central Intelligence Agency, he told a televised news conference.
The death sentence has been upheld by the supreme court and “will be carried out soon”, he added.
The January 3 strike in Baghdad also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, and five others, including the militias’ airport protocol officer, Mohammed Reda.
Iran later retaliated for Soleimani’s killing with a ballistic missile strike targeting US forces in Iraq.
That same night, the Guard accidentally shot down a Ukrainian jetliner in Tehran, killing 176 people.