Tehran regime kills innocent man ‘in attempt to show strength’
Pedram Madani is dead. Iran hanged the 41-year-old father of one on May 28 on charges of spying for Israel, a classic judicial fabrication that Tehran has wielded in the past to justify the execution of innocents in the hopes of deterring popular dissent. Yet the present geopolitical context may have added a fresh motive to the regime’s legal calculus. With protests still consuming the country and the economy reeling, nuclear negotiations between Washington and Tehran continue — and Israel stands ready to strike Iran’s atomic facilities if the talks fail. Thus, the Islamic Republic may seek not only to intimidate its citizens, but also to project renewed strength to its Western adversaries at a moment of unprecedented weakness.
First arrested six years ago, Madani endured a trial devoid of due process after the regime subjected him to solitary confinement, extracted a forced confession, and denied him a lawyer of his own choosing. As the Norway-based nonprofit Iran Human Rights (IHR) noted, Iran’s Supreme Court overturned Madani’s death sentence three times, but after each reversal the judiciary referred him to another court that reimposed the sentence. This cycle indicates the general dysfunction and corruption of the judiciary, which ultimately answers only to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Madani’s fate marks the second execution in 2025 on spurious Israeli espionage allegations that Tehran has formally announced — and comes in the wake of more than 500 executions this year on a range of other charges. In April, Tehran hanged 34-year-old Mohsen Langarneshin, whom the Islamic Republic’s official state media described as one of the Mossad’s “top spies inside Iran.” But the capital punishment came “without a fair trial,” which included “inconsistencies and legal flaws,” said his father, Masud. According to Mohsen and his former cellmate, the judiciary forced him to confess by inflicting physical and psychological torture.
Both Madani and Langarneshin faced conviction not merely for espionage but also for “corruption on earth” and “waging war against God” — amorphous, all-inclusive charges that the regime often deploys to prosecute political opponents. By their very nature, such accusations are distinctly religious, reflecting the judiciary’s self-perception as messengers of God tasked with imposing a radical Islamist order on Iran. In this sense, the regime’s theocratic rule and genocidal ambitions against Israel constitute two sides of the same coin: Both spring from a singular spiritual vision aimed at channeling divine judgment.
As part of this worldview, Iran regards itself as locked in a permanent state of religious war with Israel and the United States, both of which — from Tehran’s perspective — will stop at nothing to destroy the regime, even if their main preoccupation is Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. Yet the mullahs’ Islamist creed disorients their field of vision, causing them to misapprehend the Western threat. The judiciary thus feels compelled to respond.
To be sure, Tehran may have good reason to fear Israeli espionage. In the past several years, the Jewish state has waged a series of successful intelligence operations against Iran and its regional proxies, profoundly embarrassing the regime. In 2018, for instance, Mossad agents covertly broke into a clandestine Tehran warehouse and removed some 55,000 files and 183 compact discs documenting the regime’s illicit nuclear weapons program.
Last July, Israeli agents triggered an explosive device in a Tehran guesthouse, killing Ismail Haniyeh, a leader of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas, which is based in Gaza. Jerusalem’s message was clear: Israeli intelligence has deeply penetrated Iran, and no terrorists residing there are off-limits. And in September, in perhaps its most astounding operation to date, Israel detonated thousands of pagers and walkie talkies carried by members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, effectively removing the terrorists from the battlefield.
Months later, upon returning to office, President Trump further humiliated the Islamic Republic by reimposing his maximum pressure campaign, which has further crippled Iran’s economy and compelled the regime to return to the negotiating table. Washington’s move complemented and reinforced Israel’s operations, once again exposing the regime’s vulnerability.
Of course, Tehran’s executions of putative Israeli spies based on flimsy evidence hardly amount to a meaningful or legitimate counterattack. Whether the regime even believes its own allegations against the defendants remains unclear. The charges more likely stem from a toxic fusion of religious fervor and political cynicism — and from a reinvigorated regime effort to convey fortitude to the West and affirm Tehran’s ideology while simultaneously demoralizing protesters at a precarious time.
Madani is merely the latest innocent Iranian to pay the ultimate price. More victims are likely to follow. In the meantime, protests and nuclear negotiations will continue. Their outcome remains uncertain. But one thing is for sure: The regime is debilitated. Its leaders know it. And they are intensifying their repression in the hopes of concealing it.
Tzvi Kahn is a research fellow and senior editor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on X @TzviKahn.