Iran on Tuesday executed a young man convicted of assassinating an Iranian nuclear scientist in 2010 and spying for Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, state media reported.
"Majid Jamali Fashi, the Mossad spy and the person who assassinated Masoud Ali Mohammadi, our nation's nuclear scientist was hanged on Tuesday morning," the IRNA news agency reported.
Iranian media reported that 24-year-old Fashi was hanged to death at Tehran's infamous Evin prison. He was sentenced to death by an Iranian court in August last year for murdering the nuclear scientist.
During his trial, Fashi was accused of having received training and money from Mossad for killing the nuclear scientist. He was charged with 'moharebeh,' which means 'enmity against God' and faced death penalty if convicted.
In an appearance on Iranian state TV in January after his conviction, Fashi confessed to the killing of Mohammadi, a professor of nuclear physics at Tehran University, and admitted to receiving orders from Mossad to carry out the killing along with five others which he did not carry out.
Mohammadi was killed in a bomb explosion near his home in Tehran's Qeytariyeh district on January 12, 2010. He was killed by a remote-controlled bomb hidden in a motorcycle parked near his home.
Iran's Foreign Ministry had then said that "in the initial investigation, signs of the triangle of wickedness by the Zionist regime, America and their hired agents, are visible in the terrorist act." But the United States dismissed the allegation and the State Department described the Iranian claim as "absurd."
However, Iran announced in January, 2011 that it had dismantled a network "comprising of Israeli spies and terrorists" and arrested "the main agents" responsible for the nuclear scientist's killing. It is not clear what happened to the other suspects.
In addition to Mohammadi, several other Iranian scientists have been killed or injured in attacks in recent months. Daryoush Rezaei, a physicist at a Tehran University, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen outside his home in Tehran in July last year.
Prior to that incident, one Iranian nuclear scientist was killed and another injured in separate but identical bomb attacks in Tehran in November, 2010. The scientist killed in one of those attacks was Majid Shahriari, a member of the nuclear engineering department of the Shahid Beheshti University.
The scientist injured in the second attack on the same day was identified as Fereydoon Abbasi, a nuclear physicist who did research at the Defense Ministry. Soon after those attacks, Iran blamed Israeli and other foreign intelligence agents for the incidents, alleging that the attacks were part of efforts by the West to undermine the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program.
Although Iran insists that its controversial uranium enrichment program is aimed at producing fuel for a medical reactor in Tehran, the West suspects such claims to be a cover-up for producing weapon-grade uranium.
Iran had already survived four sets of sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council following its refusal to halt uranium enrichment. The last one was imposed in June, 2010 over Tehran's refusal to accept a U.N.-proposed deal to ease international concerns over its disputed nuclear program.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Political News
June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.