More than 100 prisoners accused of spying for Israel are facing imminent execution in Iran after the bombing of Tehran’s Evin prison in June, lawyers and survivors told The Sunday Times.
The judiciary has accelerated death sentences since Israel struck the prison on June 23.
Human rights lawyers said the attack gave judges a pretext for vengeance.
“A spirit of vengeance has taken over the judiciary,” one Tehran lawyer, who asked not to be named, told the Times.
“A judge told me: ‘Our generals and officials have been killed, and we should take revenge.’ He didn’t even allow me to speak.”
Motahareh Gounei, a 28-year-old dental student arrested for criticizing the state, survived the bombing in Ward 209. “I thought, ‘This is it. I’m dead. I’ll be buried here,’” she said in a phone interview after being released on bail.
Rights groups say many of those now marked for execution were jailed for protest activity, not espionage, and their cases rest on confessions extracted under torture.
Asghar Jahangir, spokesperson for the Islamic Republic’s judiciary, announced on June 29 that in the Israeli attack on Evin Prison, 71 people were killed.
“The casualties included administrative staff, soldiers, inmates, family members who had come for visits or legal follow-ups, and neighbors living near the prison,” he said.
From ‘Evin University’ to collective punishment
Evin has long been notorious for torture yet also carried symbolic weight for the opposition. Political detainees staged hunger strikes, organized discussions and even confronted judges visiting the prison. It became known among activists as Evin University.
That fragile space was erased by the airstrike. The following day, authorities transferred 61 women to Qarchak, a facility notorious for disease and overcrowding.
“Since we were transferred to Qarchak, we’ve lost the right to work in workshops and to cover our living expenses. That means we can no longer buy groceries and are forced to eat the prison’s food, which is mostly plain rice,” one inmate said in a monitored call.
Gounei was later moved to an intelligence-run safe house. “Your name isn’t recorded anywhere,” she said. “My interrogator told me: ‘I’ll rape you and dump your body in the desert.’”
Rising executions
Iran Human Rights, an NGO, recorded 511 executions in the first five months of 2025, nearly double the same period last year. The judiciary has announced 700 arrests for alleged espionage during the war, vowing to show “no mercy.”
Male inmates from Evin have also faced brutality. About 500 transferred prisoners were returned in chains and beaten by riot police. Roughly 100 condemned prisoners were separated from the rest, including Mohammad-Bagher Bakhtiar, a 67-year-old former Revolutionary Guard commander turned dissident.
His son, Ali Reza, said: “Since the transfer to Evin, due to lack of access to medical staff, the full extent of the injuries to my father and other detainees is still unknown.”
Israel said its strikes on Evin aimed at guards and were designed to embolden the opposition. Officials accused Tehran of exploiting the attack to justify executions while presenting the war as a domestic victory.
“We know senior officials and commanders did not carry phones, but their interlocutors, security guards and drivers had phones, they did not take precautions seriously and this is how most of them were traced,” the report said citing Iran's former deputy vice-president Sasan Karimi.
An Israeli defense official told the paper: “Using so many bodyguards is a weakness that we imposed on them, and we were able to take advantage of that.”
The tactic enabled Israeli warplanes on June 16 to strike a bunker in western Tehran where President Masoud Pezeshkian, the heads of the judiciary and intelligence ministry, and senior commanders were holding an emergency security meeting, the report added.
Earlier this month, the chief of staff to Iran's president said Israel’s attack on a Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) meeting on June 16 was a targeted attempt to kill Masoud Pezeshkian, who escaped with a minor injury.
Israel targeted the building’s entrances and exit points with six bombs to block escape routes and cut off airflow, Revolutionary Guards affiliated Fars News reported last month.
None of the leaders were killed, but several guards died outside, according to The Times.
Bodyguards had long been excluded from strict phone bans imposed on top commanders, even after earlier assassinations of nuclear scientists and military figures, The New York Times reported.
Lapse now addressed
That lapse has since been addressed, with guards now restricted to carrying only walkie-talkies, the report said.
The strikes formed part of a broader Israeli campaign that killed at least 30 senior commanders and more than a dozen nuclear scientists during the war’s first week.
Iranian officials later said dozens of suspects from the military and government had been arrested or placed under house arrest on suspicion of spying for Israel.
President Pezeshkian, who was lightly injured in the attack, later told clerics: “There was only one hole, and we saw there was air coming and we said, we won’t suffocate. Life hinges on one second.”
He added that if the leadership had been killed, “people would have lost hope.”
The announcement was made by Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the group’s Supreme Political Council.
According to the Houthis, al-Rahawi and his colleagues were holding a cabinet meeting when the strike took place.
Al-Rahawi had served as prime minister since 2024, though his role was seen largely as administrative. The council announced that Mohamed Ahmad Moftah has been appointed as acting prime minister.
The Israeli military said on Friday that its air force carried out a broad operation against Houthi positions in Sanaa, targeting senior political and military leaders.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported the strike likely killed the entire Houthi cabinet, including al-Rahawi and up to 12 ministers.
The fresh airstrikes came after the Israeli military concluded that the Houthis had used cluster munitions in one of their ballistic missile attacks on the Jewish State.
Houthis ready to fight back
After confirming the deaths of the group’s senior officials, the Houthi defense minister announced that the Houthis are ready to confront Israel.
The Houthis have been launching attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab strait, and the Gulf of Aden since the outbreak of the Gaza war. Their operations, which have also extended into the Indian Ocean, have repeatedly disrupted maritime security.
The group has also launched missiles and drones toward Israel, framing its attacks as support for Palestinians. While the United States says it recently secured a halt to Houthi strikes on American vessels, the Houthis have said the truce does not apply to Israel and vowed to continue their attacks.
