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EPA
Iran’s missile arsenal is the largest and most diverse in the Middle East
Iran says it has executed a former defense ministry employee convicted of selling information to the United States.
The execution of Reza Asgari took place last week, judicial spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told reporters.
Esmaili said Asgari had relayed details about Iran’s missile program to the Central Intelligence Agency after withdrawing from the defense ministry’s aerospace division in 2016.
He did not mention when Asgari was arrested, tried or sentenced.
Esmaili made the announcement while answering a question about the convicted spy, Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd.
He has been sentenced to death for providing intelligence to the CIA and Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency on the movements of Iranian forces in Syria.
There were no immediate comments from US officials about Asgari’s execution.
Last July, Iran’s intelligence ministry said it had arrested 17 people accused of gathering information on the country’s nuclear and military sectors for the CIA. The ministry said some had been sentenced to death but did not name them.
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, rejected that announcement as “totally false.”
The previous month, a former contractor for Iran’s defense ministry, Jalal Hajizavar, was executed after being found guilty of espionage. Hajizavar was said to have confessed that he had been paid to spy for the CIA.
