Ehsan Afrashteh Executed on Espionage Charges

According to the judiciary's Mizan News Agency, Ehsan Afrashteh, who had been sentenced to death on charges of “espionage and intelligence cooperation in favour of Israel,” was executed on 13 May 2026. Citing his “confessions,” authorities claimed that Afrashteh had travelled to Turkey and Nepal and received “various training” in “personal security protection, report writing and intelligence analysis, covert photography, establishing secure communication systems, encryption methods and information transfer, target identification and covert transmission of location coordinates, and activities in the cryptocurrency market.”

IHRNGO had previously warned about the risk of his execution. He was denied access to a lawyer of his own choosing and was tried with a court-appointed lawyer. Ehsan was sentenced to death by "Death Judge" Salavati in June 2025. The sentence was upheld by Branch 39 of the Supreme Court, while Branch 9 of the Supreme Court rejected his first appeal request. Ehsan’s father passed away after suffering a heart attack when he was informed of his son's death sentence.

Ehsan Afrashteh, 32, was a civil engineering graduate who reportedly worked in cybersecurity, open-source intelligence analysis (OSINT), penetration testing and industrial model construction prior to his arrest. 

According to Mehdi Mahmoudian, who shared a cell with him in Evin Prison, “after leaving the country and staying in Turkey, once Ehsan realised that foreign intelligence services were exploiting him, decided, following his father’s talks with security institutions and in coordination with them, to voluntarily return to Iran. However, after returning, he was sentenced to death in a judicial process.”

Upon return, Ehsan turned himself in, was arrested and held in solitary confinement for five months. According to reports, during that period interrogators filmed his confessions by placing a whiteboard in front of him and forcing him to repeat prewritten statements on camera for approximately two hours. Following the announcement of Ehsan’s execution, Mizan News Agency published a short video of his forced confessions and announced the broadcast of a “documentary of the confessions of Ehsan Afrashteh, the Mossad-trained spy in Nepal” on state television on Wednesday night.

The implementation of death sentences had first been largely halted following the start of US and Israeli military attacks against Iran on 28 February 2026. However, since 18 March, executions have resumed and at least 25 political prisoners, including 14 protesters, 11 individuals affiliated with banned opposition groups, six people charged with espionage, as well as at least five prisoners convicted on drug-related charges and 17 convicted of murder, have been executed.

Ehsan Afrashteh is the sixth person to be executed on espionage charges since the start of the war. Kourosh Keyvani was executed on 18 March 2026, Mehdi Farid on 22 April, Yaghoub Karimpour and Naser Bakarzadeh on 2 May, and Erfan Shakourzadeh on 11 May 2026.