2MAY

Iran executes Shirzadi Fakhr at dawn

1 min read

13:27UTC

Soltanali Shirzadi Fakhr was executed on Thursday 23 April on moharebeh and Israel-collaboration charges, Hengaw documented, separate from the protest-era detainee cohort.

← Back to Trump signs paper. The paper ends the war.Jump to analysis ↓

ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

A new wartime charge category, Israel collaboration, runs alongside the protest-era executions Hengaw tracks separately.

Soltanali Shirzadi Fakhr was executed at dawn on Thursday 23 April on moharebeh and "collaboration with Israel" charges, according to Hengaw⁠¹. The Hengaw note records the case as separate from the protest-era detainee cohort the organisation has tracked since the war began. Hengaw is the Norway-based Iranian human rights documentation organisation; moharebeh is the Persian Sharia-law charge of "enmity against God", historically applied to political and security offences and carrying the death penalty under Iran's penal code.

The distinction matters for the wartime judicial record. Iran's domestic security apparatus is now running two parallel execution tracks: the protest-era moharebeh sentences Hengaw has been tabulating, and a separate Israel-collaboration cohort opened by the war. Three Ali Fahim co-defendants (Shahab Zahdi, Abolfazl Salehi Siavoshani and Yaser Rajaeifar) remain in solitary confinement at Ghezel Hesar prison facing imminent execution per Hengaw, after Iran executed Erfan Kiani on Saturday 25 April as the eighth wartime political prisoner.

The MEK (Mojahedin-e Khalq) listing on Shirzadi Fakhr's charge sheet is the legal mechanism Iran uses to fold political opposition into security prosecution; the Israeli-collaboration framing is the wartime layer added on top. Together they describe an executive judicial process that requires no public trial and exposes families to courier-only notification of sentence dates.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

moharebeh is an Islamic legal concept meaning 'enmity against God', used in Iranian law to charge people with crimes against the state or Islam. Iran's judiciary uses it as a capital charge for a broad range of offences, from armed insurgency to protest activity. The additional 'collaboration with Israel' charge in Shirzadi Fakhr's case is new in wartime Iran: it reflects the government's effort to frame wartime dissent as active support for the military enemy, carrying a harder legal basis for the death penalty. **Hengaw**, the Norway-based Kurdish human rights organisation monitoring these cases, keeps a running count because Iranian state media rarely reports individual executions unless they serve a deterrence function.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The 'Israel-collaboration' charge category raises the offence from a domestic-law matter to a wartime treason equivalent, which is harder for international human rights organisations to contest under Iranian law. A moharebeh conviction alone can be appealed on procedural grounds; a wartime collaboration charge activates emergency-jurisdiction courts with faster timelines.

The charge also signals to Iran's internal surveillance network that the threshold for capital charges has expanded beyond protest activity to include any contact with Israeli or Israeli-proximate entities. In practice, that covers a wide range of Iranian diaspora and commercial relationships, giving the **IRGC** and judiciary a broadened pool of potential targets.

What could happen next?

Meaning
The creation of a 'wartime Israel-collaboration' capital charge category is likely to accelerate the pace of executions against Iranians with any documented contact with Israeli entities, including dual nationals and academics.
Short term · Assessed
Meaning
Three Ali Fahim co-defendants in solitary at Ghezel Hesar face the same moharebeh framework; the Shirzadi Fakhr execution, documented separately by Hengaw, suggests the judiciary is processing the two cohorts in parallel rather than in sequence.
Short term · Assessed
Meaning
International human rights bodies including Amnesty International and the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran now face a dual-track execution programme: protest-era sentences and a new wartime collaboration category, complicating the legal arguments for any moratorium.
Short term · Assessed

Sources:CBS News·Bangor Daily News·Al Jazeera

Mentions:Soltanali Shirzadi Fakhr →Hengaw →MEK →Israel →Shahab Zahdi →Yaser Rajaeifar →Abolfazl Salehi Siavoshani →Erfan Kiani →moharebeh →Ali Fahim →Iran →Norway →Qezel Hesar Prison →

First Reported In

Update #80 · Three carriers, zero instruments

CBS News· 26 Apr 2026

Read original →

Causes and effects

Caused by

Iran executes Erfan Kiani, eighth wartime hanging

The execution of Shirzadi Fakhr on 23 April follows the execution of Erfan Kiani on moharebeh charges on 25 April (ID:2781), extending Iran's wartime execution record with a new Israel-collaboration charge category.

Occurred 25 Apr 2026

Read story →

This Event

Iran executes Shirzadi Fakhr at dawn

A new wartime charge category appears alongside the protest-era moharebeh sentences: collaboration with foreign enemies, separately tracked.

Different Perspectives

Shipping and insurance industry

UKMTO counted about 20 US-facilitated Hormuz transits a day to 11 September against only 6 visible on AIS, with traffic still around 90% below the 138-a-day pre-war baseline. War-risk underwriters cannot price hulls they cannot see, or resolve whether the tanker El Gaia hit a mine, as Iran claims, or a missile and drone, as CENTCOM says.

European refiners

European refiners, including Poland's Orlen, absorbed a roughly $26 gap between Dated Brent at $130.80 on 15 September and ICE Brent futures settling at $103.87 on 18 September, a spread that widened from $13.45 on 9 September rather than newly opening. Their futures hedges no longer cover what they now pay for physical barrels.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Aramco zeroed European term customers' October allocations and rerouted roughly 60 million barrels to Asia through Ras Tanura and Sohar, using Red Sea and Gulf terminal capacity built years ago to cut Hormuz exposure. Riyadh reallocated existing supply rather than negotiating a shortfall with Europe.

Qatar

Qatar's energy minister Saad al-Kaabi told Bloomberg at the Qatar Economic Forum on 20 September that Bessent's two-year Hormuz-obsolescence forecast is wrong, and that Doha has deliberately built no bypass pipeline. Qatar's gas exports run through one waterway by choice, not oversight.

Iran (foreign ministry and Majlis)

Iran's foreign ministry and 130 Majlis deputies moved toward NPT withdrawal this week, with lawmaker Hossein-Ali Haji Deligani filing a triple-urgency bill on 20 September that Speaker Qalibaf has not yet scheduled. Tehran treats treaty membership as leverage still on the table, not yet spent.

Russia and China

Moscow and Beijing vetoed the Panel of Experts' renewal, maintaining Resolution 2231 lapsed in October 2025 and the 2025 snapback was never validly triggered, so the sanctions architecture the Panel enforces has no current legal standing. Both governments frame the veto as upholding law, not shielding Tehran.