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In this July 15, 2010 file photo, Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist, flashes a victory sign as he arrives at the Imam Khomeini airport just outside Tehran, Iran, from the United States.(Photo: AP)
An Iranian scientist accused of providing information on his country's nuclear program to the United States has been executed for treason, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said Sunday.
Shahram Amiri<span style="color: Red;">*</span>was charged with spying for enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, spokesman Gholamhosein Mohseni-Ejei said in his weekly news conference, the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Iranian Student News Agency reported.
"Amiri had access to confidential military secrets and was connected to our No. 1<span style="color: Red;">*</span>enemy, the Great Satan,”<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Mohseni-Ejei said. "He was sentenced to death in primary court, and the sentence was confirmed by Supreme Court" after Amiri appealed.
Mohseni-Ejei said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>U.S. officials had been unaware that Iran was monitoring Amiri's efforts for the West.
"The CIA thought that its movements were kept away from the eye of Iranian Intelligence Ministry," Mohseni-Ejei said. "They took Amiri to Saudi Arabia."
Amiri, 38,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>disappeared while on a pilgrimage to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Saudi Arabia in 2009. He re-emerged a year later in the U.S., claiming in a video that he had<span style="color: Red;">*</span>been abducted, interrogated, tortured and offered millions in bribes while<span style="color: Red;">*</span>under "intense psychological pressure"<span style="color: Red;">*</span>by the CIA. He said he rejected the U.S. effort to break him.
The U.S. said in 2010 that Amiri had defected voluntarily and was paid millions of dollars for providing "useful information."
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A month later, Amiri went to the Iran interest section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, demanding to be sent home. He drew a hero's welcome from family members and Iranian officials upon returning to Iran<span style="color: Red;">*</span>but<span style="color: Red;">*</span>was arrested less than a year later.
Mohseni-Ejei said Amiri's family thought he was<span style="color: Red;">*</span>sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2011, but Amiri actually had been sentenced to death. Amiri's mother said Saturday that his body had been handed over with rope marks on his neck.
The State Department, contacted Sunday, declined to comment on the case.
Last year,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Iran reached an agreement with the United States, Russia, China,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>United Kingdom, France and Germany<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to limit its nuclear program to peaceful activities in return for<span style="color: Red;">*</span>lifting crippling international sanctions. The deal went into effect in January.
Last week,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>revelations emerged that the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Obama administration<span style="color: Red;">*</span>secretly airlifted<span style="color: Red;">*</span>$400 million in cash to Iran in January<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to settle<span style="color: Red;">*</span>a decades-old<span style="color: Red;">*</span>legal dispute —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>just as the Iranians<span style="color: Red;">*</span>were<span style="color: Red;">*</span>releasing<span style="color: Red;">*</span>four Americans detained by Tehran.
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White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the payment was not ransom for the release of the prisoners.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>He said the money was actually Iran's<span style="color: Red;">*</span>— a payment for U.S. arms never delivered after the shah's government fell<span style="color: Red;">*</span>—<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and that the timing of the various deals and prisoner release overlapped because the multiple agreements with Iran "came to a head at the same time."
The recent release of emails sent by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on a private server while she served as secretary of State apparently include references to Amiri, the Associated Press reported.
An email forwarded to Clinton by senior adviser Jake Sullivan on July 5, 2010, from<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Richard Morningstar, a former State Department special envoy for Eurasian energy, says, "Our friend has to be given a way out. ...<span style="color: Red;">*</span>We should recognize his concerns and frame it in terms of a misunderstanding with no malevolent intent."
Another email, sent July 12, 2010, by Sullivan, appears to refer to Amiri just before the story of his complicity became public.
"The gentleman ... has apparently gone to his country's interests section because he is unhappy with how much time it has taken to facilitate his departure" from the U.S.,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Sullivan wrote. "This could lead to problematic news stories in the next 24 hours."
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