Iran hangs four Kurds on Israel spying charges

PARIS: Iran on Monday hanged four members of its Kurdish minority on charges of spying for Israel, defying a campaign for their lives to be spared by rights groups who had described their trial as grossly unfair.

The four men were executed at dawn after they were convicted of collaborating with Israel on a plan to sabotage an Iranian defence site in the central province of Isfahan, according to the judiciary´s Mizan Online website.

It accused them of being “members of a group affiliated with the Zionist spy organisation”, in apparent reference to the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. It did not refer to their Kurdish ethnicity which has been emphasised by several rights groups.