Majid Jamali Fashi (1978 – 15 May 2012) was an

Iranian Iranian () may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Iran ** Iranian diaspora, Iranians living outside Iran ** Iranian architecture, architecture of Iran and parts of the rest of West Asia ** Iranian cuisine, cooking traditions and practic ...

martial artist Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defence; military and law enforcement applications; competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; and the pres ...

, the holder of a world

bronze medal A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receives ...

kickboxing Kickboxing ( ) is a full-contact hybrid Martial arts, martial art and Boxing (disambiguation), boxing type based on punch (combat), punching and kicking. Kickboxing originated in the 1950s to 1970s. The fight takes place in a boxing ring, norma ...

, and was accused of assassinating Iranian nuclear scientist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi on the orders of

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. He was

executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

after the

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...

. In a televised confession on the Islamic Republic of Iran Television, Fashi explained in detail how he cooperated with the

Mossad The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (), popularly known as Mossad ( , ), is the national intelligence agency of the Israel, State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with M ...

and how he had received training in Israel, but there were many contradictions in his confessions.

Sporting career

Fashi also won the

of the 2009

Pankration Pankration (; ) was an unarmed combat sport introduced into the Greek Olympic Games in 648 BC. The athletes used boxing and wrestling techniques but also others, such as kicking, holds, joint locks, and chokes on the ground, making it s ...

World Cup as a freestyle martial artist and was the 3rd level trainer of the

style of the Iran Martial Sports Federation. ''Nasim News'' described Fashi as a martial artist who started his sport with kickboxing in

Karaj Karaj (; ) is a List of cities in Iran by province, city in the Central District (Karaj County), Central District of Karaj County, Alborz province, Alborz province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district. Earl ...

, then entered the field of pankration and became a member of the Iranian national team. In 2009, he competed in

Baku Baku (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Azerbaijan, largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is below sea level, which makes it the List of capital ci ...

at -85 kg and won a bronze medal.

WikiLeaks

Fashi's arrest was due to the release of

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is a non-profit media organisation and publisher of leaked documents. It is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by ...

documents (documents of the American Embassy in Baku) according to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' (

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

), which reported that the WikiLeaks documents prompted the Iranian government to arrest Fashi. According to the report, a martial arts champion told an American diplomat that the Iranian government forces martial arts instructors to train the

IRGC The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), also known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, is a multi-service primary branch of the Iranian Armed Forces. It was officially established by Ruhollah Khomeini as a military branch in May 1979 i ...

and

Basij The Basij (, lit. ''The Mobilization'') or Sâzmân-e Basij-e Mostaz'afin (, lit. ''Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed''), is a paramilitary volunteer militia within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and one of its five ...

personnels and even participate in the suppression of opposition protests. WikiLeaks explained that in the published document, there is no mention of Israel and participation in the assassination of Iranian scientists.

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

also wrote that Fashi intended to immigrate to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

after the protests of the

Iranian Green Movement The Iranian Green Movement () or Green Wave of Iran (), also referred to as the Persian Awakening or Persian Spring by the western media, refers to a political movement that arose after the 12 June, 2009 Iranian presidential election and lasted ...

, so he spoke against the Islamic Republic of Iran at the American Embassy in Baku. This publication on WikiLeaks led to his arrest by the Iranian authorities.

Television confessions

On 11 December 2010, the Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Iran announced that it had succeeded in arresting the perpetrator of the bombing and assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi. In this connection, the televised confessions of "Majid Jamali Fashi" were aired on Iran Radio and Television. In the interview of this televised confessions, Fashi reportedly implicated himself. Fashi claimed he had received the training required for this assassination during a trip to Israel and courses under the supervision of

agents. In another part of his televised confession, he claims that he was given training in a military barracks near the

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

highway, such as "pursuing and escaping, chasing a car, gathering information from a specific place, and sticking a bomb under the car." Some analysts of Israel's security affairs in the media of that country, by examining the details of Majid Jamali Fashi's televised confessions, have rejected his statements. Following the broadcast of Fashi's confessions on Iranian TV,

Time magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Cit ...

wrote: "Iran's Ministry of Intelligence has destroyed a team equipped and trained by the Mossad. Senior European security officials have confirmed that the details of Majid Jamali Fashi's confession about the January 2010 motorcycle assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi were correct. Western intelligence officials have declared a third country responsible for leaking this team."

Alleging that the confessions are false

After reviewing the interview of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi's wife, Mansooreh Karami, with

Masih Alinejad Masih Alinejad (, born Masoumeh Alinejad-Ghomikolayi (), September 11, 1976) is an Iranian Americans, Iranian-American journalist, author, and women's rights activist. Alinejad works as a presenter/producer at Voice of America Persian News Networ ...

, Iraj Mesdaghi believes that the intelligence officers wrote the murder scenario shot by shot from her statements during the numerous meetings they had with Mansooreh Karami before the televised confessions was broadcast; For example, before broadcasting the defendant's television confessions, they asked Mansooreh Karami for details, or in another place where the defendant's confessions about Ali-Mohammadi and his wife's path were the exact opposite of what happened, the scriptwriters in the Ministry of Intelligence change the whole story, and finally in the defendant's television confessions and in the explanation he gave in the court, gave a different story and did not say anything about meeting Dr. Ali-Mohammadi and his wife two days before the assassination. Mesdaghi added that "the script of Majid Jamali Fashi begins after the assassination of

Majid Shahriari Majid Shahriari (; 7 December 1966 – 29 November 2010) was a top Iranian nuclear scientist and physicist who worked with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. He was assassinated in Tehran in November 2010, allegedly by Israel's Mossad. Ca ...

; That is, from November 29, 2010 to January 11, 2011, when Fashi's television confession will be broadcast." Mesdaghi cites

's interview with Mansooreh Karami and says, Mansooreh Karami criticized Masih Alinejad in the first interview and said that no one was following up on her case, but in the next interview, she says, "we were not told anything at that time. After the assassination of Dr. Shahriari, the university professor who was assassinated, the officials came to us and reported." In addition, Mesdaghi considers the question and answer related to Shahriari's assassination in the court as another reason for faking the television confession after Shahriari's assassination. Mesdaghi asks, "If the matter goes back to before this date, the security authorities should answer the question why Shahriari was not protected. Those who knew that he was going to be assassinated and the accused had also confessed about the training he had received about the assassination." In the following, Mesdaghi also shows other cases of contradiction in the television confession. In 2019, it became clear that all other suspects arrested after Fashi in this case (including Maziar Ebrahimi) were later released from custody.

Forgery of Israeli passport on TV

After the hanging of Fashi, the image of an

Israeli passport The Israeli passport ( ; ) is the travel document issued to citizens of the State of Israel for the purpose of international travel. It grants the bearer visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 170 countries and territories, where they are ent ...

affixed with his photo was shown on the 20:30 news program of the Islamic Republic of Iran TV. According to

Fereshteh Ghazi Fereshteh Ghazi is an Iranian journalist and human rights activist. In 2004 she worked for the newspaper Etemad. She is well known for the coverage of Zahra Kazemi's murder in Evin prison. She was herself arrested and imprisoned on two occasions i ...

, the photoshopped passport shown on the Iranian TV is the image of the passport that is easily available on the

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

site, and the photoshoppers did not even bother to change the place of the stamps. Except for the place of the stamps, the date of issuance, expiration, month and year of birth of Fashi's passport that was shown on the Iranian TV is also the same as the sample of the Israeli passport available on Wikipedia. According to the report of

newspaper, the Israeli passport attributed to Fashi had several technical problems and shows that the passport was forged by novices. The first drawback of this passport is the personal photo in which Fashi looks at a point outside the camera frame, and such a photo will never be accepted for passport issuance. On the other hand, the passport issuance date mentioned is November 2003, that is, when Fashi was purportedly only fifteen years old (contrary to the source's claim, Fashi was 25 years old on the mentioned date), but the opaque photo of Majid Jamali Fashi in this fake passport is relatively looks new and not a picture of a fifteen-year-old boy.

Execution

Fashi was hanged by order of the judge

Abolqasem Salavati Abolqasem Salavati () (born 16 July 1967) is an Iranian judge and former head of the 15th branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran, Iran. In recent years, he had been the judge of numerous controversial cases. He has been sanctioned by ...

on Tuesday, 15 May 2012. According to Massoud Ali-Mohammadi's wife, Fashi's family was not present at the execution ceremony. The only witness to the execution was the husband of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi's sister, who said that Majid did not say a word, went to the gallows and was executed. However, the 20:30 news program of the Islamic Republic of Iran Television, broadcast new confessions of Majid Jamali Fashi and claimed that he made these confessions moments before his execution. In 2019, Maziar Ebrahimi, who had accepted the assassination of nuclear scientists in his forced confessions on television, said, regarding the execution by hanging of Fashi, that several of those who were in the cells next to Fashi at prison, they narrated to him that on the night when Fashi was taken to be executed, he shouted loudly at the prison officers and the conversations have been exchanged between them: "Jamali Fashi tells the agents that you promised me that you would tell them that I am cooperating with you and that you will appreciate me when the main murderer is arrested; But in response to Jamali Fashi, they say no, Haji's opinion has changed and he has decided not to say this, and the martyr's wife also went to the sir (they mean

Ali Khamenei Ali Hosseini Khamenei (; born 19 April 1939) is an Iranian cleric and politician who has served as the second supreme leader of Iran since 1989. He previously served as the third President of Iran, president from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei's tenure ...

, the leader of Iran) and the sir said to execute you."

References

External links

Majid Jamali Fashi

Did a WikiLeaks document doom Iranian 'Mossad agent'?

Iran hangs 'Israel spy' over nuclear scientist killing

Man pleads guilty to assassinating Iranian nuclear scientist

Iran hangs man accused of killing nuclear scientist

Iran death penalty for 'Israeli spy' Majid Jamali Fashi

Majid Jamali Fashi, 'Israeli assassin,' hanged in Iran
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fashi, Majid Jamali 1978 births 2012 deaths Sportspeople from Tehran 2010 murders in Iran Nuclear program of Iran Iran–Israel relations Zionist political violence Executed Iranian people by the Islamic Republic of Iran People executed by Iran by hanging 21st-century executions by Iran People convicted of murder by Iran Iranian people executed for murder Political prisoners in Iran People convicted of espionage in Iran 21st-century Iranian criminals Executed spies People convicted of spying for Israel Inmates of Evin Prison Iranian murderers Crime in Iran Iranian male martial artists Iranian male kickboxers Date of birth missing