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TEHRAN, Iran – At the gallows, the condemned prisoner Tuesday repeated theallegations Iran lodged against him: That he was trained byIsrael's spy agency to carry out one of the first attack on Iranianscientists in a suspected shadow war against Tehran's nuclearambitions. "The end of the road has nothing except repentance — andrope," Majid Jamali Fashi was quoted as saying just moments beforehe was hanged for the January 2010 bombing that killed TehranUniversity physics professor Masoud Ali Mohammadi. The execution inside Tehran's Evin Prison — and Iran'sstate-sanctioned coverage of his purported last words — areconnected to a world of alleged covert operations and assassinationplots that have stretched from the Black Sea to Bangkok, and yethave somehow not disrupted efforts at nuclear talks between Iranand world powers, which are expected to resume next week inBaghdad. At least four other members of Iran's scientific community havebeen killed since the explosion of a bomb-rigged motorcycle thattargeted Mohammadi. Iran has blamed Israel's Mossad spy agency aswell as the CIA and Britain's MI-6. Washington and London havepreviously denied any roles. In Jerusalem, Israel Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor saidTuesday the slayings "are not connected to us in any way." But Israel and others haves pointed the finger at Iran for allegedreprisal missions, including a February bombing in New Delhi thatwounded an Israeli diplomat's wife and the discovery of a cache ofexplosives in Bangkok that Thai officials claim was linked a plotto target Israeli diplomats. In Azerbaijan's capital of Baku,security officials in March announced the arrest of 22 suspectsallegedly hired by Iran for terrorist attacks against the U.S. andIsraeli embassies and other Western-linked sites. The intrigue, however, has remained on the margins as the U.S. andallies try to press ahead with negotiations over Iran's nuclearprogram. A first round last month in Istanbul produced nobreakthroughs, but discussions are expected to intensify at thenext session beginning May 23 between Iran and a six-nation groupcomprising the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plusGermany. Possible bargaining could center on efforts to halt Iran'senrichment of uranium at 20 percent levels, the highest-gradematerial announced by Tehran. Iran, in turn, has signaled it couldurge the U.S. and Europe to ease some of the most painful newsanctions, including those hitting Iran's oil exports and itsaccess to international banking networks. In Vienna, meanwhile, Iran and the U.N.'s nuclear agency held asecond day of talks over suspicions that Tehran might have testedatomic arms technology at a military site. Iran denies the claims— as well as insisting it only seeks nuclear reactors forenergy and medical research. The morning of Jan. 12, 2010, signaled a potential shift in Iran'snuclear standoff with the West. The scientist Mohammadi was leavingfor work when a bomb-laden motorcycle was blown apart by apparentremote control, killing the 50-year-old researcher whose work onsubatomic particles had no direct military applications. The suspect, Fashi, was put on trial in August 2011 in proceedingsthat received full state media attention. Iranian TV broadcast whatit said were his confessions in which he admitted that he wasrecruited by the Mossad and went to Israel for training as a paidassassin. Little else has been made public about the 24-year-oldFashi except that he was a member of the national team in the sportof pankration, which includes elements of boxing, wrestling andfighting. He was sentenced to death for crimes of "defiance of God," or usingarms against Iran's Islamic government, and spreading "corruptionon the earth," or damaging public security and order, according tothe official IRNA news agency. The scientist's wife, Mansoureh Karami, was quoted by a websiteaffiliated with Iranian state TV as saying Fashi and his supporterswill now "face the wrath of God" after his hanging. But Palmor, the Israel Foreign Ministry spokesman, noted that "thekilling of innocent people comes as a sad and morbid habit" inIran, which has one of the world's highest execution rates. Iran's state-controlled media usually portrays the country as avictim of Israel-linked aggression in the attacks on nuclearfigures. In a ceremony in February to insert domestically made fuel rods ata Tehran research reactor, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadspoke on national television next to photos of the five nuclearscientists and researchers killed since 2010. Nearby was a largeportrait of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei holding the sonof Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a senior director of Iran's main uraniumenrichment facility, who was killed in January after a magneticbomb tore through his car in Tehran. Ahmadinejad lifted to his knee the daughter of nuclear electronicsexpert Darioush Rezaeinejad, who was fatally shot last year by twogunmen on motorcycles. Iran's nuclear chief, Fereidoun Abbasi,embraced the girl. Abbasi was wounded in November 2010 twinbombings that killed nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari. ___ Murphy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Presswriter Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Nylon Canvas Bag , Protective Phone Covers for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Screen Protective Film.
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