'Iran arrests Israel spy network behind assassination of nuclear scientist'

Iranian state TV report quotes Intelligence Ministry statement claiming Israel used European allies in the 2010 killing of Masoud Ali-Mohammadi in Tehran.

By Reuters Tags: Israel news Iran nuclear Mossad

Iran has arrested a "network of spies" linked to Israel's Mossad intelligence service that it blames for the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist in 2010, its state television reported on Monday.

	The Bushehr nuclear power plant, south of Tehran.
	Photo by: Reuters

"The network of spies and terrorists linked to ... Mossad was destroyed," state television quoted a statement issued by the intelligence ministry as saying. "The network was behind the assassination of Masoud Ali-Mohammadi."

A remote-controlled bomb killed the Tehran University scientist in Tehran on January 12 last year. Iran blamed the United States and Israel for the killing.
Washington has denied charges of involvement as "absurd".
The statement said Israel had "used some European and non-European countries as well as some neighboring countries to lead the assassination," without giving further details.
In February 2009, British newspaper the Daily Telegraph reported that Israel was assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists as part of a covert war against the Islamic Republic's illicit weapons program.
The Telegraph quoted Western intelligence analysts as saying that Israel's Mossad spy agency was behind the death of Ardeshire Hassanpour, a top nuclear scientist at Iran's Isfahan uranium plant who died mysteriously from "gas poisoning" in 2007.
The United States and its allies accuse Iran of trying to build bombs under cover of a civilian nuclear program. Tehran says its nuclear work is for generating electricity.
Western sources have said Ali-Mohammadi, a physics professor, worked closely with Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi and Fereydoun Abbassi-Davani, both subject to UN sanctions because of their work on suspected nuclear weapons development.