Iran Jails Two People For Spying For Israel, With One Being A Dual UK-Iranian National

Iran on Tuesday jailed two people — dual Iranian-U.K. national Anousheh Ashouri and Iranian Ali Jouhari — for allegedly helping Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad.

According to Gholamhossam Esmaili, a spokesperson for the Iranian judiciary, Ashouri was handed two sentences for a total of 12 years in prison.

The first sentence of 10 years is allegedly due to feeding intelligence to the Mossad. The second sentence is due to him allegedly receiving $36,600 in illicit funds from Israel, with Ashouri obliged to pay back the same amount in fines.

The British Foreign Office said that it had "been supporting the family of a dual Iranian-British dual national since his detention and our Embassy in Tehran continues to request consular access."

Iran does not recognize dual citizenship.

Jouhari was also sentenced to 12 years in prison for having "widespread connections to the Mossad," with the Iranian Judiciary adding that he was also trying to obtain Israeli citizenship.

In a separate case, an Iranian appeals court upheld a 10-year sentence for Aras Amiri, an Iranian employee at the British Council in London who was arrested while visiting her sick grandmother in Iran in 2018.

Amiri was imprisoned for "acting against national security" and that she used her contacts in the arts and theater to "infiltrate Iran on a cultural level."

Amiri's fiance, James Tyson, wrote an op-ed for the Guardian, where he said that she was imprisoned in a "bogus trial and an appeal without legal representation." He alleged that the Iranian government now uses Amiri "as a political pawn" and that the case is a "manifestation of Iran's own frustrations, but also of the U.K.'s diplomatic failings."

Amiri is supposedly kept in the same Tehran prison as Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe, a dual U.K.-Iranian national serving a 5-year sentence since 2016 for spying charges. Radcliffe's husband has said that the two women have become friends.

Israel and Iran have no diplomatic relationship, with the Israeli government calling the country the world's largest sponsor of terrorism, and pushing back any possibility of the country acquiring a nuclear weapon.

The Iranian government does not recognize Israel as a country and has implored Arab countries in the Middle East region to "drive back Zionism."