Man executed in espionage case

Iran executed an electronics salesman convicted of relaying information on the country’s nuclear program and other sensitive data to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, a judiciary spokesman said.

Ali Ashtari was hanged Monday; he had been sentenced to death on June 30 by a revolutionary court in Tehran, spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi said. It was Iran’s first known conviction for espionage linked to Israel in almost a decade.

Ashtari was found guilty of relaying sensitive information to Israel on military, defense and research centers that the 45-year-old electronics salesman supplied, Jamshidi said. Iranian officials have said the material included information on Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.