Iran hangs 'elite student' on espionage charges: NGOs

PARIS: 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 United States and Israel’s war against Iran.

Erfan Shakourzadeh, 29, was hanged after being convicted for collaborating with the CIA and Mossad, the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.

Norway-based rights groups Iran Human Rights and Hengaw said that 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”.

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 protests, one 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 said that Shakourzadeh, who had been 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”, said 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.

Iran is the world’s most prolific executioner after China, according to rights groups. Last year it hanged at least 1,639 people, according to figures from IHR, which has recorded at least 190 executions so far in 2026.