Iran says it executed nuclear scientist for passing secrets to Mossad

Iranian state broadcaster IRIB says a man executed yesterday for allegedly giving information on Iran’s nuclear program to the Mossad spy agency, was himself a nuclear scientist.

“Key facilities were Fordo and Natanz, for which I sent information. I told them I knew this and that about Fordo, they told me to send everything,” Rouzbeh Vadi says in what IRIB describes as a confession video it airs.

“The entry and exit of nuclear material into the Uranium Conversion Facility and Fuel Manufacturing Plant were very important to them,” says Vadi, who held a PhD in nuclear engineering from Amir Kabir University of Technology.

A voiceover in the video says that Vadi met five times with Mossad agents while in Vienna and was asked to open a cryptocurrency account to receive payment for his services. The defendant says in the video that Mossad had promised him a foreign passport should he complete a long-term collaboration.

IRIB also shares a screenshot of an academic paper presented at an Iranian nuclear conference in 2012 that was written by Vadi as well as Ahmad Zolfaqar and Abdolhamid Minouchehr – two nuclear scientists killed in June by Israel.

In the document, Vadi is introduced as a nuclear researcher at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the country’s top nuclear body.