TEHRAN — Iran executed three men on Sunday after convicting them of running armed sabotage operations for Israel and the United States during anti-government demonstrations in January.
Final appeals collapsed earlier this week when Iran's Supreme Court upheld the capital sentences. The judiciary announced the hangings.
Court records identified the executed men as Hassan Dioband, Hamid Kazemi, and Reza Zanganeh. Prosecutors charged the trio with deploying firearms, grenades, and Molotov cocktails during violent street clashes in the city of Karaj. One assault damaged a regional electricity substation, triggering blackouts across residential districts. Authorities insisted the attacks crossed the line from civil unrest into foreign-backed subversion.
Security agents arrested Dioband on January 11 after tracking him as a primary organizer of assaults against municipal property and incitement to violence. Raids multiplied immediately. Ten other individuals accused of operating under Dioband's direct supervision were rounded up in subsequent sweeps across the province.
But the gallows were reserved strictly for the core leadership. While the Supreme Court confirmed death penalties and total asset confiscations for Dioband, Kazemi, and Zanganeh, the remaining ten defendants avoided execution. Trial judges handed down prison sentences ranging between five and ten years for the secondary suspects.
Sunday's executions mark the latest enforcement wave targeting participants of the January protests linked by state prosecutors to American and Israeli intelligence agencies. Judicial officials indicated that asset seizures against the men's estates will proceed under state enforcement orders.