Political prisoner Gholamreza Khani-Shakarab executed on charges of spying for Israel
Hengaw – Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Iranian authorities have executed Gholamreza Khani-Shakarab, a 34-year-old Turkish political prisoner, former MMA champion, and international coach and referee from Ardabil, in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj. He had been sentenced to death on charges of spying for Israel.
According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the execution was carried out at dawn on Monday, May 26, 2026, without allowing Khani-Shakarab a final meeting with his family.
The judiciary’s media center simultaneously issued an official statement confirming the execution. In its account of the case, the Islamic Republic’s judiciary alleged that Khani-Shakarab had been “one of the operational ringleaders of Israel’s intelligence organization (Mossad) abroad” and claimed he recruited individuals inside Iran to carry out what it described as “anti-security activities.”
Hengaw had previously reported that Khani-Shakarab had been residing in Turkey before his arrest. Last year, during a trip to Iraq reportedly undertaken for pilgrimage purposes at the suggestion of a relative, he was abducted by the Islamic Republic’s cross-border forces and forcibly transferred into Iran.
Following months of interrogation and solitary confinement in the security wards of Evin Prison, Khani-Shakarab was sentenced to death by Judge Abolghasem Salavati of Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court on charges of “espionage and collaboration with a hostile state (Israel)” in what sources described as a deeply opaque and grossly unfair judicial process. The sentence was later upheld in full by Branch 39 of the Supreme Court.
A source previously told Hengaw that Khani-Shakarab had been denied access to a lawyer of his choosing throughout both the interrogation phase and court proceedings. According to the source, the case against him and the death sentence ultimately issued were based entirely on forced confessions extracted under severe pressure and torture.
The execution was carried out secretly and without prior notice to his family despite the fact that his relatives had recently submitted a new request for judicial review to the Supreme Court. In recent days, Khani-Shakarab had been abruptly transferred from Evin Prison to solitary confinement in Ghezel Hesar Prison ahead of the execution.
In connection with the same case, his 43-year-old brother, Esmail Khani, was also arrested by security forces solely because of his familial ties to Gholamreza Khani-Shakarab. After being sentenced to prison, he is currently serving his term in Ardabil Central Prison.
Hengaw Organization for Human Rights strongly condemns the abduction, torture, and secret execution of Gholamreza Khani-Shakarab and considers both the issuance and implementation of the sentence a clear example of state-sanctioned killing and the continuation of the Islamic Republic’s policy of judicial assassinations targeting dissidents and political-security defendants.
Hengaw further stresses that executions based on torture-tainted confessions and carried out in the absence of even the minimum standards of a fair trial constitute a grave violation of human rights and international law, and calls on the international community to respond seriously to the ongoing wave of executions in Iran.
