Azerbaijan, Baku, March 9 /Trend S.Isayev, D. Khatinoglu/
The punishment for spying in Iran is execution, Iranian Guardian Council Chairman, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said, IRNA reported.
Jannati added that spying is intended for enemies to penetrate Iran.
"Every crime has its own punishment," Jannati said. "For drug trafficking and spying punishment it is execution, according to Quran".
Earlier, Iran's Supreme Court has rejected the death sentence against Iranian-US citizen Amir-Mirza Hekmati, who was charged with working as an agent for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Back in January, revolutionary court in Tehran issued the death sentence against Hekmati for cooperating with a country hostile to Iran, affiliation with the CIA, and efforts to link Iran with terrorism.
Hekmati confessed on state television to having been deceived by the CIA into spying on Iran. After training in military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, he was dispatched to Iran to infiltrate Iranian secret service.
The 28-year-old Hekmati was supposed to win the trust of the Iranian secret service with classified CIA intelligence data but, according to his statements, he never intended to harm the Islamic state but wanted to stay in Iran and not return to the US.
Hekmati's father, who lives in Detroit, denied that his son had any affiliation with the CIA. The US State Department has called on an immediate release of Hekmati.