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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran killed its own nuclear scientist, pinned it on 'Mossad spy,' per Arab TV

2012-05-25

Iran killed one of its own nuclear scientists but blamed his death on a so-called "Israeli spy" who it executed last week, a leading Arabic news channel reported Wednesday. Iranian authorities on May 15 executed Majid Jamali Fashi, who was convicted of assassinating nuclear scientist Masoud Ali Mohammadi in a car booming in January 2010. The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... speculated that the liquidation of Mohammadi was "part of a shadow war played out between Iran and Israel." But Dubai-based news channel Al-Arabiya, quoting Iranian opposition sources, said that Iran used Fashi as a scapegoat to please local public opinion. The opposition sources said they even doubted that Fashi was really executed, noting that the footage of his execution aired on public television was short and blurred. The sources speculated that Iranian intelligence assassinated Mohammadi, the nuclear scientist allegedly killed by Fashi, because it had discovered that he intended to defect to the West. Al-Arabiya said that the Israeli passport attributed to Fashi by Iran was so badly forged it "was not becoming of a country capable of building nuclear facilities." The channel reported that certain characteristics of the passport indicate that it was issued in the 1990s, not in 2003 as printed on it. Other obvious faults in the travel document include a misplaced passport number and a photo which displays the face tilted to the side rather than directly facing the camera. "The Mossad would not place an illegal photo on a passport given to an agent in order to travel in Europe and elsewhere, as airport authorities would easily suspect it," the report claimed. Emanuele Ottolenghi of Commentary magazine also noted that Fashi is looking away from the camera in the alleged passport and that he appears to be an adult. If the 2003 date was accurate, Fashi would have been 15. The Harry's Place blog said that the facsimile displayed by Iranian TV shares exact details with a facsimile of an Israeli passport available through Wikipedia: Both were issued on Nov. 17, 2003 in Netanya. Iran has repeatedly accused Israel of assassinating nuclear scientists in an attempt to thwart its nuclear program. Israel has not commented on such accusations. If we had a CIA worth anything at all, we'd be offering every Iranian nuclear scientist asylum, pointing out to them that it's a race between Mossad and their own government as to who's going to whack them first. And the ones who refuse our offer of asylum? I'd finger them to the Mad Mullahs™ for having talked with the CIA.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Did a WikiLeaks document doom Iranian 'Mossad agent'?

2012-05-19

WikiLeaks may have been responsible for exposing Majid Jamali Fashi, the 24-year-old kickboxer who was hanged in Tehran on Tuesday morning after "confessing" to assassinating a nuclear scientist on behalf of Israel, a British media report said. The Times of London reported Wednesday that a document from the US Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, seemingly drew attention to Fashi. The September 2009 US diplomatic document -- identified by the code 09BAKU687 -- quotes an Iranian source who was a licensed martial arts coach and trainer as describing to his American contacts pressure from the Iranian regime to train soldiers and militiamen in martial arts. Fashi was reportedly in Baku for an international martial arts competition only days before the US Embassy document was written. The suggestion is that the Iranian authorities identified Fashi as someone who was in illicit contact with the West on the basis of the document. He was arrested days after the publication of the document by WikiLeaks in December of 2010 and charged with carrying out the January 2010 assassination of nuclear scientist Masoud Ali-Mohammadi on behalf of the Mossad. The British report Wednesday quotes a UK academic, Birmingham University professor Scott Lucas, speculating that the diplomatic cable may have been a critical piece of evidence or simply a pretext on which to arrest Fashi. "It could have been used as a pretext against him; to set him up as a person who could take the fall for the assassination," Lucas said. There is nothing in the US document pertaining to Israel. Iranian authorities claimed that Fashi admitted to travelling to Tel Aviv for training from the Mossad and funding for the killing of Ali-Mohamaddi. Tehran has complained to Baku about its close ties to Israel, saying it suspected that Azerbaijan was allowing the Mossad to operate against Iran from its territory.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

WikiLeak perhaps led to Iran's 'Mossad' hanging

2012-05-16

Iran may have used a secret cable published by WikiLeaks to target and hang an alleged Israeli spy, The Times of London reported Wednesday. While the report is inconclusive and the evidence anecdotal, it notes striking similarities between a WikiLeak cable's description of its Iranian source and twenty-four year old Majid Jamali Fashi, hanged in Tehran on Tuesday in connection with the murder of an Iranian nuclear scientist in 2010. Though WikiLeaks redacted the source's name before releasing the cable penned by an intelligence operative in Baku, Azerbeijan, it published the description of the source as "a licensed martial arts coach and trainer." According to the Times, Fashi, a professional kick-boxer, had visited Azerbaijan for a kick-boxing tournament days before the cable was sent. The report, which The Jerusalem Post could not independently verify, speculates that the leak may have called Iran's attention to Fashi, or simply served as a pretext against him. Iran alleges that Fashi traveled to Israel from Azerbeijan and received Mossad training. The Islamic Republic convicted Fashi in a closed trial after extracting a televised "confession."

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran executes 'Israel spy, nuclear scientist' killer

2012-05-15

Iran on Tuesday hanged a man convicted of playing a key role in the 2010 murder of a top nuclear scientist and of spying for Israel, the official IRNA news agency reported quoting Tehran prosecution office. "Majid Jamali Fashi, the Mossad spy and the person who assassinated Masoud Ali Mohammadi, our nation's nuclear scientist was hanged Tuesday morning," IRNA said. Local media on August 28 reported that Jamali Fashi was sentenced to death after being "convicted of Moharebeh (waging war against God) for placing a bomb-laden bike and blowing it up in front of martyr Ali Mohammadi's home, collaboration with the Zionist regime and Mossad." Jamali Fashi stood trial as the main suspect in the killing of Ali Mohammadi, a particle physics professor at Tehran University who was killed in a bomb attack outside his home in January 2010. Jamali Fashi also faced charges of cooperating with Israel's spy agency and of having received $120,000 for passing on intelligence to Mossad, the website report added. The Islamic republic has blamed the Jewish state and the United States for the killing of four of its scientists and nuclear experts since 2010.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran blames Israel for killing nuke scientists

2011-09-21

Blaming Israel for assassinating its nuclear scientists, Iran said Tuesday it would not retaliate for the "ugly phenomenon" but would seek more international support against such killings. It was the Ruritanians, honest... Israel in turn accused Tehran of secretly working on nuclear arms, warning that it may be the first nation to develop such weapons while being a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The recriminations at and outside of a meeting of the 151-nation International Atomic Energy Agency reflected the bitterness dividing not only the Mideast's most intractable foes but of the camps supporting them. Iran is under four sets of UN Security Council sanctions for not mothballing a program that can make both nuclear fuel or fissile warhead material. It has rapidly expanded since being discovered in 2002, and concerns have grown with the country's refusal to allow the IAEA to probe growing intelligence-based allegations that it is working on a nuclear warhead and other aspects of a weapons program. Criticizing US ally Israel for not acknowledging it has nuclear weapons, Tehran exploits Muslim hostility and fear against the Jewish state as it seeks to blunt concerns about its own growing nuclear prowess. Israel has not commented on Iran's accusation that it was behind the killings of at least two nuclear scientists and the wounding of a third since January 2010. Its campaign against the Islamic Republic focuses on warnings that Tehran is rapidly nearing nuclear weapons state status and demands that the international community act before it is too late to prevent such a development. Arguing his case Tuesday to reporters at an event featuring family members of the killed victims, Iranian IAEA envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh said his country would not retaliate against the "ugly phenomenon of assassinating ... nuclear scientists to stop Iran's nuclear progress." Well, that and computer viruses in your centrifuges... Instead, he said, Tehran will push for greater international condemnation of such practices, adding he is "very sure about the support of almost all member states" of the 151-nation IAEA. Mansoureh Karami, the widow of assassinated scientist Masoud Ali Mohammadi, blamed the "Zionist regime" for the killings. In an indirect poke at the United States and its allies, she said nations who "falsely claim human rights share these crimes." The Iranian delegation also showed a film featuring Majid Jamali Fashi – who Iran says is the killer of one of the scientists – asserting that he was recruited by the Jewish state. Israeli nuclear chief Shaul Chorev meanwhile insisted inside the IAEA meeting that the real danger was Tehran. "Not only is Iran continuing its enrichment related activities in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, but it is also engaged in activity directly related to the design and testing of nuclear weapons," he said. "Absent an effective response by the international community, Iran may become the first country to acquire nuclear weapons while being member of the NPT." By 'effective response', he means blowing up all the nuclear facilities...

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iranian gets death sentence for scientist's murder

2011-08-29

TEHRAN: An Iranian accused of assassinating a scientist on behalf of Israel has been sentenced to death, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported on Sunday. Majid Jamali-Fashi had pleaded guilty to murdering Massoud Ali-Mohammadi in January 2010, the first of several attacks on scientists which Iran said were the work of enemies that wished to stop it developing nuclear technology. Majid didn't work for us. Our guy was someone named Mahmoud... The prosecution said Jamali-Fashi had traveled to Israel to receive training from the Mossad intelligence agency, and had been paid $120,000 for the assassination. They know that how... IRNA quoted a judiciary spokesman as saying he had been condemned to death for "waging war against God" and being "corrupt on Earth," both capital offenses under Iran's strict form of Islamic law. Although IRNA described Ali-Mohammadi as a nuclear scientist, a spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said in the days after his death that he had not played a role in the activities of the organization. He was .. some other nuclear scientist... An Iranian opposition website said at the time that Ali-Mohammadi was an opposition supporter who had backed moderate candidate Mirhossein Mousavi in the disputed June 2009 presidential election, suggesting there may be other possible motives for his murder. Eleven months after the bomb attack that killed Ali-Mohammadi as he set off to work, two other scientists were targeted. Majid Shahriyari, who authorities said had a role in one of Iran's biggest nuclear projects, was killed but Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani survived and has since been appointed head of the Iranian nuclear organization. "Rats. Missed him, David." "Try again, Avie. We only need to be lucky once."

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

DEBKA: Iran's confessed Israeli spy really an IRGC bully boy

2011-01-20

The young Iranian man who "admitted" on Iranian TV last Tuesday, Jan. 11 that he had acted for the Israeli Mossad in the murder of Iranian nuclear scientist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi is revealed in real life by debkafile's Iranian sources as a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' secret reserve death squad of brawny sportsmen used to cut down opponents of the regime and break up protest rallies. debkafile's Iranian sources had uncovered the real Majid Jamali Fashi - a champion kick boxer, a professional terminator and an ardent fan of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As a sportsman, his face is familiar to people in Iran from the media and the Internet. Until late 2009, he represented his country in international kick-boxing contests. Are any Rantburgers followers of kick-boxing, who could verify this claim? Here is the Iran PressTV video of the man confessing on-screen. Iranian intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi must have realized that putting him on national TV as a Mossad spy to support his boast that Iranian agents had penetrated the Mossad networks he claimed were spread across the country would open more than one can of worms. If Majid had really been recruited by Mossad, this would have been a feather in the cap of the Israeli spy service -- not Tehran. It would have told the television audience that Mossad's tentacles had not only reached into Iran's nuclear program but also the elite clandestine ranks of the Revolutionary Guards, the IRGC. So why make it the subject of a boast? Majid Jamali Fash's real persona is disclosed here by our Iranian sources: He was born in Tehran in 1978 and after completing his military service with the IRGC, took up kick boxing while continuing to serve the Guards as a reservist. He and hundreds of his fellow champion sportsmen belong to a unit which is regularly called up for undercover work such as liquidating enemies of the regime and breaking the heads, arms and legs of regime opponents. In the summer of 2009, the young sportsman was employed in the brutal break-up of the mass street rallies protesting the rigged election which gave Ahmadinejad his second term. Tehran's practice of employing national sporting talent as IRGC hatchet men in "crowd control" has drawn angry protests from the international federations of Taekwondo, Judo, Karate, Kung fu and other martial arts. Because of his fame, Iranian audiences found it hard to revise their view of Jamali-Fashi as a Mossad agent. Many decided his performance was faked by Iranian intelligence. However, opposition circles did believe in his role as assassin of Prof. Mohammadi, though not in the service of Israel but his IRGC masters because the late professor supported the opposition's cause.

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