Iran says it arrested 17 Iranians allegedly recruited by CIA and has sentenced some to death
- Iranian intelligence official says those arrested worked on ‘sensitive sites’ in military and nuclear installations and were offered US jobs or visas
- Trump calls announcement ‘totally false story’ and ‘another lie’ from Iran
Iran on Monday announced the arrest of 17 Iranians accused of spying on the country’s nuclear and military sites for the CIA and said some of them have been sentenced to death. US President Donald Trump called it “another lie” from Iran.
The arrests happened over the past months, an Iranian intelligence official said at a news conference in Tehran. He said those taken into custody worked on “sensitive sites” in military and nuclear installations. The official did not say how many were given death sentences.
The announcement came amid weeks of rising tensions between Washington and Tehran over Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of Iran’s nuclear agreement with world powers last year and impose sweeping sanctions on the country.
The official said the 17 were recruited by the CIA and had “sophisticated training” but did not succeed in their sabotage missions. Their spying missions included collecting information at the facilities where they worked and installing monitoring devices, he said.
He said some were staff members at the targeted facilities, and the rest were working as consultant and contractors. The official said the CIA had promised them US visas or jobs in America.