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Iran Conflict 2026
6AUG

Two hanged at Urmia as wartime spies

3 min read
15:43UTC

Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat were executed at dawn on 3 August on charges of spying for Mossad, according to the Kurdish rights monitor Hengaw. Iran's judiciary has published nothing.

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Key takeaway

Hengaw reports two wartime espionage executions at Urmia, unacknowledged by Iran's judiciary and unverifiable from outside.

Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat were executed at dawn on Monday 3 August, reportedly at Urmia Central Prison in Iran's north-west, on charges of spying for Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency, according to the Kurdish rights organisation Hengaw 1. Hengaw, which monitors Iranian executions from Norway, says both men were accused of passing coordinates and images of military sites to Israeli intelligence and to the London-based broadcaster Iran International, that confessions were reportedly taken under torture in solitary confinement, and that neither man had counsel of his choice, family visits or a public trial 2. It could not confirm whether either family has been given a body. Hengaw remains the only source for every element of that account.

These two cases sit on a different track from the hangings this file has followed since spring. Arvin Kheirkhahan, executed at Shahrud on 1 August, was convicted of moharebeh, waging war against God, on charges arising from the January 2026 protest wave . Behzad and Safvat were detained during the war itself and charged under the wartime espionage provisions of Iran's penal code, which carry the death penalty. Same gallows, different legal pipeline, and the second one has no street protest behind it to generate names and dates from outside.

The two tracks converge on procedure. Hengaw counted 67 executions in July with only eight acknowledged by the state , and on its account the same pattern holds here: no published docket, no advance notice to families, no judgment on the record. A family whose first reliable notice of a capital case is the instruction to collect a body has had the appeal window, the clemency campaign and the diplomatic intervention closed before any of them could open. Those are the mechanisms that have occasionally saved Iranian prisoners, and none of them can operate on a case nobody outside the prison knows about.

Iran's judiciary has published nothing on either man. That cuts both ways for a reader: the state's version cannot be tested, and neither can Hengaw's be verified from outside the country.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran executed two men, Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat, at dawn on 3 August, reportedly at Urmia's central prison, on charges of spying for Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, during the war. The report comes from Hengaw, a Kurdish human rights group that has tracked a rise in wartime espionage executions; Iranian state media has not yet confirmed it independently.

What could happen next?
  • Meaning

    A single-sourced execution report that Tehran's own judiciary outlets have not yet confirmed leaves the precise charge and evidence base for Behzad and Safvat's convictions unverified.

First Reported In

Update #166 · Two Hormuz deals, neither one published

Hengaw· 6 Aug 2026
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Causes and effects
This Event
Two hanged at Urmia as wartime spies
These are wartime espionage cases rather than protest convictions, which opens a second execution track running alongside the one this file has followed since spring.
Different Perspectives
Hengaw
Hengaw
The Norway-based monitoring group reported the Urmia executions of Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat, the only source to do so, consistent with its documented pattern of recording far more executions than the Iranian state acknowledges. Iran's government has not confirmed either execution.
Shipping and insurance underwriters
Shipping and insurance underwriters
War-risk premiums price the Houthi campaign because the group announces its targets in advance, but a reopening Trump has promised without a published text gives underwriters no benchmark to reprice Hormuz cover against. Insurers want a text before they move rates, not a promise.
Houthi movement
Houthi movement
Spokesman Yahya Saree claimed strikes on two tankers in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden on 5 August, only one of which UKMTO could confirm. The group's campaign against shipping continues on its own schedule, independent of any Hormuz arrangement further north.
Oman
Oman
Muscat has brokered the coordinates both Tehran and Washington's wire sources now describe differently, but has published no account of its own. Oman's position depends on treating Hormuz as a shared route, which is not what Iran is currently describing.
United States Central Command
United States Central Command
CENTCOM raised its interdiction tally from 35 to 44 redirected vessels and disclosed its first boardings on 3 August, the day before Trump promised a reopening. The command's own enforcement record does not yet reflect the release the President has described.
Iran's Foreign Ministry
Iran's Foreign Ministry
Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei described the agreed Hormuz coordinates as a wholly new corridor under Iranian management, not a split of the existing route, days after his own deputy rejected Oman's lane proposal. Tehran wants the arrangement read as a change of ownership, not a compromise on access.