TEHRAN — Iran’s Judiciary has announced that Ruhollah Zam, the operator behind the Amad News website and Telegram channel, has been sentenced to death.

“This person’s sentence has been issued,” Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaeili said on Tuesday. “He has been found guilty.”

Esmaeili explained that Zam was charged with “corruption on the earth”, a term used to describe capital crimes within the Islamic Republic’s judicial system, for 13 of his crimes.

The spokesman added the convict has a right of appeal.

In October 2019, the IRGC announced that Zam had been arrested during a complicated intelligence operation.

Zam launched Amad News in 2015. The channel frequently posted fake news stories and called for violence with the aim of overthrowing the Islamic Republic system.

During the protest rallies in December 2018, he urged the people to take arms against the government.

In its statement, the IRGC said it lured Zam into Iran using “clever, multidimensional and innovative tricks”, which even deceived foreign intelligence agencies.

The IRGC also said the French intelligence service was behind Zam’s activities, which were also backed by the U.S. and the Zionist regime’s spy services.

The IRGC posted the news of his arrest on Zam’s Telegram channel with a following of over a million users, effectively taking over the administration of the popular channel.

It also posted a photo of Zam in custody, under which it was written: “This is just the beginning”.

Back in December 2017, Telegram blocked Amad News for encouraging violence after a request by the Iranian Minister of Communications and Information Technology .

However, Zam resumed his activities by launching a new channel called Seday-e Mardom, which is translated as “voice of the people”.

MH/PA