Iran announced on Tuesday that it had convicted and planned to execute an Iranian citizen accused of helping the US to assassinate its revered Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
The news was reported by Reuters, which cited a press conference aired on Iranian TV.
Soleimani was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq, in January. He was famous in Iran for his role in leading foreign military operations for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. His killing pushed the US and Iran to the brink of war.
Gholamhossein Esmaili, a spokesman for Iran’s judicial service, said at the conference that officials had identified Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd as a culprit in Soleimani’s death.
Esmaili described him as a spy for the CIA and Israel’s Mossad security agency and said he had already been sentenced to death.
“Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd, one of the spies for the CIA and the Mossad, has been sentenced to death,” Esmaili said, adding that he “shared information about the whereabouts of martyr Soleimani with our enemies.”
“He passed on security information to the Israeli and American intelligence agencies about Iran’s armed forces, particularly the Guards,” Esmaili said, according to Reuters.
The announcement took many by surprise, given its speed and timing — almost exactly six months after Soleimani died.
One security official told Insider that information made public by the US might have made it easy for Iran to identify any informants involved. The official, who works in the Persian Gulf, requested anonymity because he lacks permission to discuss Iran with the media.
“We knew the Pasdaran was looking at logistics and security offices for the leak, people who would have to know [Soleimani’s] movements as part of their work,” he said. Pasdaran is Persian slang for the Revolutionary Guard.
“If this is the Americans’ guy, they really f—ed him with releasing all the details on how they tracked Soleimani — how they always knew when he was on a plane, that a source had confirmed he was definitely on the flight and had disembarked,” he said, referring to US news reports at the time of the assassination that drew on inside information about how the strike was carried out.
Bloomberg News published such a story three days after the strike that cited two unnamed US officials. NBC News published a detailed account one week after the strike that cited multiple US officials with knowledge of the operation.
According to The Washington Post, President Donald Trump gave his own detailed account of the strike to a meeting of donors at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida not long afterward.
The Gulf-based source continued: “How hard is it to figure out everyone who knew exactly when Soleimani was there? Arrest everyone who knew and interrogate them until someone confesses.”
A NATO official who closely monitors Iran, also speaking anonymously, said that Iran’s behavior suggested that Mousavi-Majd could have been one of its own intelligence officials.
“This is how most countries would prefer to deal with catching a traitor in the security services,” he said.
“You need to know what they gave up and when and how they were recruited as quickly as possible, then a fast, final trial to not embarrass the service.”
Mousavi-Majd has not been identified as a member of the Iranian intelligence services or the Guard, but the Persian Gulf source agreed that, from Iran’s official behavior, that appeared most likely.
“Who else would know where Soleimani was going to be? The guy didn’t use a travel agent,” he said. “And a fast, quiet trial because it was one of your own guys.“