Who Was Erfan Shakourzadeh? The Elite Engineer Iran Executed After He Refused to Leave His Country

Iran executed Erfan Shakourzadeh, a 29-year-old aerospace engineer who graduated first in his class and chose to stay in his country when hundreds of thousands of educated young Iranians were leaving, at dawn on Monday, at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, without notifying his family or granting him a final visit.

Shakourzadeh was hanged on charges of spying for the CIA and Israel's Mossad intelligence service, according to Iran's judiciary-linked Mizan News Agency. Human rights groups said his confession was extracted through eight and a half months of torture and solitary confinement.

'One of the Few Elites Who Chose Not to Emigrate'

In a note smuggled from prison before his execution, Shakourzadeh denied the charges and pleaded for public attention.

'I am Erfan Shakourzadeh, one of the few so-called elites who chose not to emigrate,' he wrote. 'I was arrested on fabricated espionage charges and, after eight and a half months of torture and solitary confinement, was forced into a false confession. Do not let another innocent life be taken in silence.'

The letter captures a bitter irony at the heart of his case. Iran ranks first in the world for brain drain, according to the International Monetary Fund, with an estimated 150,000 to 180,000 educated citizens leaving the country every year. More than 80 out of every 86 Iranian international science competition winners have chosen to leave the country permanently, according to the Emirates Policy Center. Shakourzadeh stayed.

A Top Student Who Worked on Iran's Satellite Technology

Born in 1996, Shakourzadeh studied electrical engineering at the University of Tabriz before completing a master's degree in Aerospace Engineering and Satellite Technology at Iran University of Science and Technology, where he ranked first in his class. He was working at a scientific organisation specialising in satellite constellation control and positioning systems when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence detained him in February 2025.

Iran's judiciary accused him of contacting Mossad and the CIA 'in three stages' through email, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp, and of sharing classified information about his workplace and ongoing projects in exchange for cryptocurrency payments. No details of his trial or evidence were made public.

A Secret Execution at Dawn

The Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights reported that Shakourzadeh was transferred from Evin Prison in Tehran to Ghezel Hesar Prison on 7 May under the pretence of a meeting with judicial officers. He was placed in solitary confinement and executed four days later.

Iran Human Rights had called on 9 May for an immediate halt to the execution, but the sentence was carried out in secret. His family was not informed until after his death.

The Iranian judiciary later announced it would broadcast what it described as his 'confessions' on state television on the evening of his execution.

A Pattern of Targeting Iran's Brightest Minds

Shakourzadeh is the fifth person executed on espionage charges since the war between Iran and a US-Israeli coalition began on 28 February 2026. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center reported that at least 612 people were executed in Iran in the first four months of 2026, an average of roughly five per day over 117 days.

His case is not an isolated one. Ali Younesi, a Sharif University computer engineering student and gold medallist at the 2018 International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics, was arrested in April 2020 and sentenced to 16 years on national security charges. His father was also imprisoned.

For a country that loses its best-educated people by the tens of thousands each year, Shakourzadeh's execution sends a grim message to those who might consider staying.