Iranian authorities on Monday hanged a post-graduate student from an elite Tehran university on charges of espionage, the latest in a spate of executions against the backdrop of the war against the United States and Israel.
Erfan Shakourzadeh, 29, was hanged after being convicted for allegedly collaborating with the CIA and Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.
Norway-based rights groups Iran Human Rights and Hengaw said Shakourzadeh was a student at Tehran’s prestigious Iran University of Science and Technology and had written a message before his execution rejecting the charges as fabricated.
Describing him as an “elite student,” IHR said he was held “in solitary confinement and subjected to torture and forced to give false confessions.”
According to Hengaw, Shakourzadeh wrote a note published from prison prior to his execution, saying: “I was arrested on fabricated espionage charges and, after eight and a half months of torture and solitary confinement, was forced into a false confession. Do not let another innocent life be taken in silence.”
He is the fifth person to be executed on espionage charges since the beginning of the war in late February.
Authorities have also since then executed 13 men charged over January protestsone more over 2022 demonstrations and 10 accused of links to banned opposition groups, according to IHR.
Rights groups have repeatedly accused Iran of using capital punishment as a tool to spread fear though society during times of international and domestic tension.
Hengaw reported that Shakourzadeh, who was arrested in February 2025, was executed at dawn in the Ghezel Hesar prison outside Tehran after being suddenly transferred from the capital’s Evin prison earlier this month.
After graduating with a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tabriz, “he was a top-ranked master’s student in aerospace engineering at Iran University of Science and Technology,” according to Hengaw.
He was “subjected to nine months of severe physical and psychological torture in solitary confinement in order to extract forced confessions” after his arrest, it said.
Mizan said he had been working on satellite technology and provided details to the foreign intelligence agencies “about his workplace, access level, duties, and other sensitive information.”
It said his “confessions” would be broadcast on state television Monday evening.
But in a message published by Hengaw and IHR, Shakourzadeh said the accusations were “baseless” and he had been “forced into false confessions” due to torture.
“Do not let another innocent life be lost in silence and without public attention,” he said.
Earlier this month, a man was executed for his role in a murder committed during another round of protests that rocked Iran in 2022-2023 following the death of Mahsa Aminia young Iranian Kurdish woman.
In March, Iran executed three men who were accused of killing police officers during the protests, including Saleh Mohammadia young member of Iran’s national wrestling team.
Iran is the world’s most prolific executioner after China, according to rights groups. Iran Human Rights and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty said last month in their joint annual report on the death penalty in Iran that at least 1,639 people were executed in 2025 — including 48 women.
IHR has recorded at least 190 executions so far in 2026.
Iran has carried out a string of executions since nationwide protests swept the country in January. Activist groups have long accused Iran of carrying out closed-door trials during which defendants are unable to fully defend themselves. Iran’s judiciary chief has repeatedly said that Tehran would increase the speed with which it carried out hangings to fight back against its enemies at home and abroad.