Iran's intelligence minister has boasted on state television about his country's successful recruitment of a former cabinet-level official from a "hostile" country, signaling Tehran's first acknowledgment of compromising an arrested Israeli official.
Speaking on state TV late Tuesday, Mahmoud Alavi claimed his agency had a "member of the cabinet of a hostile country" in hand.
He did not name the country or individual, but said the recruitment showed that "the counter-espionage sector of the Intelligence Ministry is one the most powerful among the world's intelligence services."
Alavi's language and recent events signal that he was referring to Israel, one of Iran's archrivals.
In June, Israel imprisoned former government minister Gonen Segev. The Shin Bet security agency accuses him of "committing offenses of assisting the enemy in war and spying against the State of Israel."
