Iran Hangs 29 Year Old Satellite Engineer on CIA, Mossad Charges
29
Age of Shakourzadeh at execution
9 months
Solitary confinement, per Hengaw
28+
Political executions since 18 March (HRW)
📍 Iran : Execution and detention sites, Karaj and Tehran, 11 May 2026
Execution site (Ghezel Hesar), detention site (Evin) and university affiliation (IUST). Datum WGS84, UTM Zone 39S. Map: Strategy Battles / OSINT.
📍 GHEZEL HESAR PRISON, KARAJ
MGRS: 39S VV 97831 63574
35.8163°N 50.9760°E
Execution carried out at this Alborz Province facility on 11 May 2026 after Shakourzadeh was transferred from Evin four days earlier.
📍 EVIN PRISON, TEHRAN
MGRS: 39S WV 34798 58728
35.7720°N 51.3850°E
Held by IRGC Intelligence Organization from February 2025. Removed on 7 May 2026 under pretext of a meeting with judicial officers, per Hengaw.
📍 IRAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, TEHRAN
MGRS: 39S WV 45671 55395
35.7415°N 51.5051°E
Top-ranked masters student in Aerospace Engineering and Satellite Technology. Employed at a state scientific organisation in the satellite field at time of arrest.
📍 UNIVERSITY OF TABRIZ (UNDERGRADUATE)
MGRS: 38S PH 17194 13980
38.0660°N 46.3360°E
Completed electrical engineering degree before moving to IUST for graduate aerospace work, per Euronews and Hengaw biographical records.
🔴 The Execution
Hanged at Ghezel Hesar after a Four Day Transfer From Evin
Iran on Monday 11 May 2026 executed the 29 year old aerospace researcher Erfan Shakourzadeh at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, at grid reference 39S VV 97831 63574 (35.8163°N, 50.9760°E), roughly 20 kilometres northwest of Tehran in Alborz Province. The execution was first announced by the judiciary-affiliated Mizan and Mehr news agencies, which said he had been convicted of collaboration with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Israeli Mossad while working at one of Iran’s scientific organisations active in the satellite field.
According to the Oslo-based Hengaw Human Rights Organization, Shakourzadeh was removed from his ward at Evin Prison in Tehran on 7 May under the pretext of a meeting with judicial officers, and transferred to solitary confinement at Ghezel Hesar for the implementation of his sentence. His family was not notified in advance, and he was denied a final visit. The Times of Israel, citing the Reuters Dubai newsroom, reported the same sequence: a Mizan announcement of the hanging with no specific date or arrest date attached, followed by the Hengaw account establishing the chain of events.
The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim agency identified him as Erfan Shakurzadeh, son of Jafar, and said court documents accused him of attempting to provide classified information to enemy services while holding a sensitive position. Rudaw and Newsmax both confirmed the Mizan and Tasnim accounts. None of the Iranian state agencies specified what category of classified information was alleged to have changed hands, beyond a reference to a Mossad cooperation form including personal details, place of work, type of access, and organisational duties.
Iran Judiciary statement, via Mehr news agency, 11 May 2026
“While collaborating with the country’s important scientific complex, the defendant attempted to contact enemy intelligence services, including the CIA, and especially the Mossad intelligence-terrorist service.”
🟡 The Defendant
Top Aerospace Student, Satellite Project Employee, Detained in February 2025
Shakourzadeh studied electrical engineering at the University of Tabriz at grid reference 38S PH 17194 13980 (38.0660°N, 46.3360°E), before moving to Tehran for his graduate work. He completed the masters programme in Aerospace Engineering and Satellite Technology at Iran University of Science and Technology, at 39S WV 45671 55395 (35.7415°N, 51.5051°E), reportedly graduating first in his class. Euronews described him as one of Iran’s leading young talents in the aerospace field. He was working at a state scientific organisation in the satellite domain when he was detained by the IRGC Intelligence Organization in February 2025.
Hengaw said he was subjected to nine months of severe physical and psychological torture in solitary confinement to extract forced confessions. Ahead of the execution, Shakourzadeh wrote a letter, since circulated by Hengaw and reproduced by Euronews, Rudaw and Indiablooms, in which he described himself as one of the few elites who chose not to emigrate and said the espionage charges against him were fabricated. The torture and forced-confession claims are sourced to Hengaw and rights-group reporting only; Iranian state outlets do not address them.
Erfan Shakourzadeh, prison letter, via Hengaw, May 2026
“I am Erfan Shakourzadeh, 29 years old, one of the few so-called elites who chose not to emigrate. After eight and a half months of torture and solitary confinement, I was forced into a false confession. Do not let another innocent life be taken in silence.”
🔵 The Wider Pattern
Espionage Hangings Accelerate After the February War
The execution at Ghezel Hesar, grid reference 39S VV 97831 63574, comes inside a sharply expanding pattern. The United Nations Human Rights Office reported in late April that Iran had carried out at least 21 executions since the start of its war with the United States and Israel in late February, and that more than 4,000 people had been arrested on national security charges since the conflict began. Human Rights Watch senior Iran researcher Bahar Saba, in remarks reported by Rudaw, said at least 28 people had been executed on politically motivated charges since 18 March 2026, when executions resumed after a brief suspension at the war’s onset on 28 February.
Earlier in May, Iran executed two further prisoners on espionage charges, including the Kurdish prisoner Nasser Bakrzadeh, who in a final letter from prison said his first crime was being a Kurd, and warned he would not be the last to face such a fate. Indiablooms listed Kourosh Keyvani on 18 March, Mehdi Farid on 22 April, and both Yaghoub Karimpour and Naser Bakerzadeh on 2 May as other recent prisoners executed on related security charges. Amnesty International recorded Iran’s highest annual execution total in more than 15 years in 2025, with many cases involving espionage, national security and alleged ties to Israel or the United States.
Ghezel Hesar, sanctioned by the United States Department of State in December 2024 for cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, has become the dominant site for these executions. HRANA recorded 183 executions at the prison in the year to October 2025, the highest figure for any single facility in Iran. The transfer of political and security prisoners from Evin Prison in Tehran, at 39S WV 34798 58728, to Ghezel Hesar before sentence is now an established pattern, observed by Hengaw and World Israel News alike in coverage of multiple recent cases.
🟢 The Aerospace Angle
Satellite Sector Under Concentrated Counter-Intelligence Pressure
Western analysts have long argued that Iran’s civil satellite programme has dual-use links to its ballistic missile and space-launch capabilities, a position cited by the Times of Israel in its execution coverage. That intersection makes any Iranian scientist with access to satellite project data a target for foreign intelligence services, and equally a target for IRGC counter-intelligence. Shakourzadeh’s case fits a wider trajectory of Iranian aerospace, nuclear and advanced engineering personnel detained on espionage charges over the past several years.
World Israel News reported the case drew comparisons to those of other elite Iranian students prosecuted on national security grounds. Iran Prison Atlas records the prior execution at Ghezel Hesar of Rouzbeh Vadi, identified as a nuclear researcher, on espionage charges connected to Israel. Whether these cases reflect genuine intelligence penetration, a counter-intelligence sweep designed to deter defection in a sensitive cohort, or a combination, cannot be assessed from open sources. What is established is that the IRGC Intelligence Organization has prioritised the satellite and nuclear scientific sectors as venues for high-profile espionage prosecutions during and after the war with the United States and Israel.
The court did not specify what classified information was allegedly shared, and the cooperation form described by the judiciary, listing personal and family details, place of work, type of access, missions and organisational duties, is consistent with a recruitment intake document rather than the transfer of technical data. No public detail was offered on the alleged Mossad or CIA handlers, communication methods, or operational outputs of the alleged collaboration. Iran has not produced public evidence of compromised satellite or aerospace programmes attributed to the case. As with similar prior cases since the 2025 war, the public record rests entirely on judiciary statements on one side and rights-group accounts on the other.
Strategy Battles Assessment
A High-Visibility Deterrence Hanging Inside a Wider Sectoral Sweep
The Shakourzadeh execution should not be read in isolation. It sits inside a deliberate Iranian counter-intelligence campaign that began before the February 2026 war and accelerated through it. The April 2026 spy-purge story carried by Strategy Battles documented 50 arrests across 16 provinces for mapping missile targets in the same window, and Hengaw, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations have each recorded a sharp post-conflict spike in security-charge executions. The IRGC Intelligence Organization is using the post-war environment to compress months of pending cases into rapid, judicial-channel hangings, with state media announcements timed to maximise deterrent effect on the active scientific workforce.
The aerospace and satellite sector is being treated as a particular priority. Tehran has long known that its space-launch programme is read in Western capitals as a covert intercontinental missile pathway, and that any scientist inside that programme is a high-value Western recruitment target. Visible executions of named, top-of-class graduates serve a dual function: they signal to handlers in Tel Aviv and Langley that the IRGC believes it is detecting recruitment attempts, and they signal to the next cohort of researchers that the cost of contact, real or alleged, is the rope at Ghezel Hesar. Whether Shakourzadeh was actually a foreign agent is in this sense secondary to the political and counter-intelligence work the execution performs.
The forced-confession claims, sourced to Hengaw and Shakourzadeh’s own pre-execution letter, are not independently testable from outside Iran. They are, however, consistent with documented patterns at Ghezel Hesar and Evin, including U.S. State Department sanctions findings on the prison from December 2024. The case is unlikely to alter the trajectory of Western intelligence operations against the Iranian aerospace sector. It is highly likely to deepen the chilling effect on the cohort of scientists Tehran most needs to retain.
Strategy Battles Related Coverage
Sources
- The New Region : Iran executes aerospace researcher accused of being CIA, Mossad spy (11 May 2026)
- The Times of Israel : Iran executes man who worked in satellite field for allegedly spying for Mossad, CIA (11 May 2026)
- Euronews : Iran executes young aerospace engineer over CIA and Mossad espionage allegations (11 May 2026)
- Hengaw Human Rights Organization : Iran secretly executes aerospace researcher Erfan Shakourzadeh after torture-tainted espionage case (11 May 2026)
- Rudaw : Iran hangs top university student on Mossad, CIA spying charges (11 May 2026)
- World Israel News : Iran executes satellite engineer accused of spying for Mossad, CIA (11 May 2026)
- Newsmax / Reuters : Iran Executes Man Convicted of Spying for CIA and Mossad (11 May 2026)
- Kayhan Life / Reuters Dubai : Iran Executes Man Convicted of Spying for CIA and Mossad (11 May 2026)
Editorial Verification
The fact of execution, the name Erfan Shakourzadeh, the charges of cooperation with the CIA and Mossad, and the Mizan and Tasnim statements: 8 independent sources (The New Region, Reuters via Newsmax and Kayhan Life, Times of Israel, Euronews, Rudaw, Hengaw, World Israel News, Tasnim citation in Rudaw). Biographical detail (age 29, University of Tabriz electrical engineering, IUST aerospace masters, top of class): 4 independent sources (Euronews, Hengaw, Indiablooms, Rudaw). The 7 May transfer from Evin to Ghezel Hesar and the denial of a final family visit: single-source to Hengaw, flagged in body text. The torture and forced-confession claims and the prison letter text: sourced to Hengaw and rights-group reporting; flagged with a purple tag in the article and not asserted as fact. State agencies Mizan, Mehr and Tasnim did not address the torture allegations. Iran’s foreign ministry had not issued a public response on the torture claims at time of publication.
MGRS datum: WGS84 / UTM Zone: 39S (Karaj and Tehran sites), 38S (Tabriz) / Cross-check reference: Azadi Tower, Tehran 39S WV 30578 50694.
No satellite imagery used. Coordinates derived from open-source geolocation of named facilities.
All claims independently attributed and verified to open sources where possible.
Approved for Publication
Marcus V. Thorne
Lead Editor, Strategy Battles
©StrategyBattles.net 2026
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