TEHRAN - IRAN has sentenced to death an Iranian found guilty of spying for Israel, the Fars news agency reported on Monday, amid spiralling tensions between Tehran and the Jewish state.

The sentence against Ali Ashtari, 43, who was arrested one and a half years ago, was handed down by a revolutionary court and the accused can still appeal the verdict, the agency said.

'The revolutionary court has found Ali Ashtari - a spy of the Zionist regime - to be mohareb (an enemy of God) and sentenced him to death,' Fars quoted an unnamed intelligence official as saying.

The verdict comes amid an intensifying war of words between Iran and its regional arch enemy Israel, which has never ruled out military action to halt the controversial Iranian nuclear drive.

According to Ashtari's 'confession', published in full by Fars, he was a salesman of telecoms equipment which sought to help the Israeli intelligence service Mossad access secret information from Iranian officials.

Mossad gave him US$50,000 (S$68,020) to buy Internet cables and satellite phones and then sell them on to 'special customers' in the hope of enabling Israel to spy on their communications.

His handlers 'introduced themselves as Jacques, Charles and Tony,' Ashtari said.

'I had meetings in Thailand, Turkey and Switzerland with them. They gave me some equipment including a laptop through which I could send encrypted emails,' he said.

They wanted 'me to sell these terminals in Iran to my special customers so they could hack into this equipment. I am not sure what they intended to do as before I sold these to my customers I was arrested,' he added. -- AFP