TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has arrested a “network of spies and terrorists” allegedly connected to Israel and responsible for killing a prominent scientist in 2009, the ministry said Monday.
The ministry’s statement said that months of widespread operations had led to the “deep infiltration” by Iranian intelligence agents of Israel’s spy agency, the Mossad. This resulted in the discovery of “extremely important information on Mossad spy teams, which led to the arrest of some of these agents inside Iran,” said the statement, which was carried by the semiofficial Mehr News Agency and other local media.
“They have confessed to being trained by the Mossad and receiving all of their equipment from that agency,” Ismael Kowsari, a member of the National Security Commission of parliament, told the Fars News Agency.
Iran regularly says it has arrested spy rings or terrorists working for foreign intelligence agencies, but it rarely provides evidence to support such claims. The public statement promised that more details would be given at “an appropriate time.”
The arrests of alleged spies are related to the death of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, a physics professor who was killed by a bomb attached to a parked motorcycle.
State television aired statements Monday by a man introduced as “the arrested person.” He was shown sitting on a chair in a dark room. He said he traveled with Israeli officers to Jerusalem, where he received training on a military base.
In Israel, officials in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had no immediate comment on the announcement, The Associated Press reported.
Iran’s claim came one day after it sentenced a prominent human-rights lawyer to 11 years in prison, highlighting an intensifying crackdown on lawyers that appears focused on those connected to 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.
The court also ruled that the lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, 47, is not allowed to practice law or leave the country for the next 20 years, said her husband, Reza Khandan.
The parliament news website, an outlet of members of parliament who are critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration, confirmed Sotoudeh’s sentence Monday.
Sotoudeh’s case has been closely followed by Iranian activists inside and outside the Islamic Republic, where she made a name for herself by defending children and women’s-rights activists, anti-government dissidents and journalists.
Sotoudeh had defended Ebadi in court.
