Iran said on Tuesday the Islamic Republic Supreme Court had upheld a death sentence against an anti-Iran media figure who was captured last year in a complex intelligence operation outside the country.


Ruhollah Zam, the administrator of the counterrevolutionary website Amad News, was convicted of fomenting violence during anti-government protests in 2017.


Iran's Judiciary Spokesman Gholam-Hossein Esmaili announced that Rouhollah Zam had received the death penalty from the Public and Revolution Court.

Amad News was notorious for disseminating incriminating content against the Islamic establishment, insulting the sanctity of Iranian Muslims, and publishing fake news in order to drive a wedge between the people and government.

Zam faced charges of having “committed offenses against the country’s internal and external security” and “espionage for the French intelligence service,” alongside “corruption on earth” as well as insult to “the sanctity of Islam”, an indictment released in February said.

Ruhollah Zam was arrested after a complex intelligence operation and through cooperation with other intelligence services in mid-October, 2019.

Zam, in recent years, had become a tool in the hands of espionage services and anti-Iran bodies and had been publishing false news against the country in a Telegram channel known as ‘Amad News’.

“Intelligence forces had been keeping a careful watch over Ruhollah Zam’s movements for a long time and he stepped into intelligence trap of IRGC some two years ago; ultimately, we were able to arrest him through cooperation with other intelligence services,” Second Brigadier General Mohammad Tavallaei, a high-ranking military official in IRGC headquarters said at the time.