TEHRAN – Iran today executed Ruhollah Zam, a former opposition figure who lived in exile in France and was implicated in anti-government protests, reported state television.
The broadcaster said the “counter-revolutionary” Zam was hanged in the morning after the Supreme Court upheld his sentence due to “the severity of the crimes” committed against the Islamic republic.
The country’s Revolutionary Guards announced Zam’s arrest in October last year, claiming he was “directed by France’s intelligence service”.
State TV said he was “under the protection of several countries’ intelligence services”.
Zam was charged with “corruption on Earth” – one of the most serious offences under Iranian law – and sentenced to death in June.
The official IRNA news agency said he was also convicted of espionage for France and an unnamed country in the region, cooperating with the “hostile government of America”, acting against “the country’s security”, insulting the “sanctity of Islam”, and instigating violence during protests in 2017.
At least 25 people were killed in the unrest in December 2017 and January the following year that was sparked by economic hardship.
Zam, who reportedly lived in Paris, ran a channel on the Telegram messaging app called Amadnews.
The platform shut down the channel after Iran demanded that it remove the account for inciting an “armed uprising”. – AFP, December 12, 2020
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