How Ex-Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Ended Up Under House Arrest Amid Alleged Israel Spy Claims

Israel aimed to recruit Ahmadinejad as an intelligence asset and considered him for leadership if the regime fell.

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been placed under house arrest by the intelligence arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after authorities uncovered what they described as extensive contacts with Israel, according to a report by The New York Times, which cited four senior Iranian officials. The newspaper reported that Israel had spent years conducting a covert operation to recruit Ahmadinejad as an intelligence asset and had later considered installing him as Iran’s leader in the event of the regime’s collapse.

According to the report, one of the operation’s most unusual episodes took place in early 2024, when a senior Hungarian government official asked Gergely Deli, rector of Ludovika University of Public Service in Budapest, to invite Ahmadinejad to a climate change conference.

Deli told The New York Times that he had been informed the conference would serve as a cover for secret talks between Ahmadinejad and Israeli intelligence officials.

Despite concerns that the arrangement could damage his own reputation and that of the university, Deli said he agreed because he believed that if “you have two enemies, and if these enemies want to talk with each other, then it’s best to do what you can to make them talk.” Former US officials told the newspaper that then-Mossad chief David Barnea personally travelled to Budapest for the meeting with Ahmadinejad.

Report Alleges Secret Payments

The report said Israel later made several secret payments to Ahmadinejad’s spokesman, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, and that Israeli agents met him on multiple occasions before the launch of Operation Roaring Lion.

According to The New York Times, Ahmadinejad’s residential compound was struck in an Israeli airstrike in February that targeted his bodyguards and armoured vehicle. The newspaper reported that he was subsequently taken to a secret safe house by Mossad operatives before later leaving under unclear circumstances.

He was next seen publicly at the funeral of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Citing senior Iranian officials, the newspaper said Ahmadinejad has since been taken into custody by the IRGC’s intelligence organisation and placed under house arrest.

Mossad officials and Javanfekr declined to comment to The New York Times.

‘He Would Do It For Power’

Abdolreza Davari, a former adviser and associate of Ahmadinejad, rejected the suggestion that money motivated the former president. “He has money; he has a wide economic network. He would do it for power. He wants to be at the helm of power,” Davari told The New York Times in a telephone interview.

Another associate told the newspaper that Ahmadinejad had discussed ambitions of returning to power with the backing of foreign governments and had feared that war could lead the United States and Israel to support another figure instead.

The associate also said Ahmadinejad had grown increasingly distrustful of Iran’s political system after being barred from standing in the country’s presidential election on three occasions.

According to the report, he had also become frustrated with senior figures in the Iranian leadership, including Ayatollah Khamenei, and had previously said that if he returned to power he would seek to normalise relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords.