Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
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Tehran says it arrested 17 suspects & sentenced some to death
Iran arrested 17 suspects and sentenced some to death after dismantling a CIA spy ring, an official said on Monday, as tensions soar between the Islamic republic and the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed the report as “totally false”.
Security agencies “successfully dismantled a (CIA) spy network,” the head of counter-intelligence at the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, whose identity was not revealed, told reporters in Tehran. “Those who deliberately betrayed the country were handed to the judiciary… some were sentenced to death and some to long-term imprisonment.” The suspects were arrested between March 2018 and March 2019. “The report of Iran capturing CIA spies is totally false. Zero truth,” Mr. Trump tweeted.
‘Sensitive centres’
Iran said last month it dismantled a network linked to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, state news agency IRNA said at the time, saying it was conducted in cooperation with “foreign allies”. On Monday, the counter-intelligence chief said 17 people suspected of espionage had been identified, all of them Iranians. The suspects had been “employed at sensitive and crucial centres and also the private sector related to them, working as contractors or consultants,” said the official. The Intelligence Ministry released a CD with images of what it said were CIA operatives abroad as well as business cards of U.S. diplomats in Austria, Finland, India, Turkey and Zimbabwe allegedly involved in the network. The announcement came as state television started broadcasting a “documentary” titled “The Mole Hunt”, a trailer of which was on the disc.
