he told the court he had been tasked by Israel to carry out five other assassinations.
Jamali-Fashi confessed to laying the bomb that killed Masud Ali-Mohammadi January 12, 2010, by planting a motorbike packed with explosives next to Ali-Mohammadi’s car. The bomb was blown up by remote control the next morning as the nuclear scientist got into his car.
Jamali-Fashi was arrested sometime in 2010 before he attempted any more assassinations. His confession was televised in January. There has been no explanation of why it took another seven months to bring him to trial.
Most of what he said in the trial session Monday—a rare open-court trial for such a case—was a repeat of his televised confession. He said he was trained in Israel by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and that he practiced the bombing over and over again for his Israeli handlers.
Since that first assassination, two more nuclear scientists have been killed in Tehran. No one has been arrested in those cases.
Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi, Tehran’s prosecutor, said Jamali-Fashi received a total of $120,000 from Israel.
Jamali-Fashi has been charged with moharebeh (enmity for God), a crime that carries the death penalty in Iran.
