Iran's Supreme Court has rejected a request to review the death sentence given to university professor Ahmadreza Djalali, who is accused of passing information to Israel, his lawyer said on Tuesday, according to AFP.
"The judge rejected our request on Sunday in less than an hour," said the lawyer Zeinab Taheri.
"We will file a new request with the Supreme Court to demand that the dossier be read, given the sensitivity of the case," he added.
Djalali, a specialist in emergency medicine resident in Sweden, was detained in April 2016 after a brief visit to Iran.
He was found guilty in October of passing information about two Iranian nuclear scientists to Israel's Mossad intelligence agency that led to their assassinations.
The Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence against him in December. Amnesty International has urged Iran not to go ahead with the execution, saying the courts had "run roughshod over the rule of law" by sentencing Djalali to death.
Djalali's lawyer said she could file multiple requests for the case to be reviewed, although there was no guarantee any would be accepted.
His sentence has been condemned by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium where he was a visiting professor at the time of his detention, and the European Union has said it is closely following the case.
Iranian state television in December aired what it described as the confessions of Djalali. In those “confessions”, the professor was linked to the assassination of four Iranian scientists between 2010 and 2012 that Tehran said was an Israeli attempt to sabotage its nuclear energy program..
The Islamic Republic, which is notorious for its executions, has in the past executed individuals it claimed to be “spies” for both Israel and the U.S.
In June of 2012, Iran claimed to have dismantled a terrorist and sabotage network in the southern city of Shiraz, which allegedly planned bombings and assassination attempts during Iran’s presidential election.
The network had links with the CIA, Israel and some neighboring Arab nations, Iran claimed at the time.
In a previous incident, Iran executed Majid Jamali Fashi after convicting him of spying for the Mossad and of playing a key role in the January 2010 assassination of a top nuclear scientist in return for a payment of $120,000.