The three suspects are accused of being involved in the murder of scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and being an Israeli spy.
Iranian judges have sentenced three people to death after a court found them guilty of being spies for Israel and complicity in the assassination of a top nuclear scientist.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed when his car was attacked on a highway outside the capital in November 2020.
“The first legal action took place in Urmia, where these people were sentenced to death; the case is currently in the appeal process,” Asghar Jahangir, a spokesman for Iran's judiciary, told a press conference in Tehran on Tuesday.
“After some investigation, three of the eight people arrested in West Azarbaijan province, were accused of spying for the Israeli government,” said Jahangir.
He added that the three were also “suspected of transporting goods to Iran to kill the martyr Fakhrizadeh under the guise of smuggling alcohol”.
The decision came after a “thorough investigation”, an Iranian official said, adding that charges against four other suspects were still being reviewed.
Fakhrizadeh was widely seen by Western intelligence as the mastermind of Iran's clandestine efforts in the early 2000s to build nuclear weapons behind the scenes of a declared uranium enrichment program – a claim Iran denies.
Iranian officials say the killing occurred when a weapon using a high-tech, satellite-controlled camera zoomed in on the scientist as he drove outside the Iranian capital. Tehran has blamed the killing on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
Tensions between Iran and Israel have been high since the war in Gaza began in October last year. The Islamic Republic has been supporting a network of allies across the region, including Hamas and Hezbollah, which oppose Israel in Gaza and Lebanon, respectively.
The regional rivals also went head-to-head, when Iran launched a telegraphed missile and drone attack toward Israel in April in response to an alleged Israeli airstrike that killed senior Iranian officials in Damascus, Syria.
In October, Iran launched 180 ballistic missiles at Israeli targets in what it said was a response to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and the assassination of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Israel responded with three waves of attacks targeting militants in three Iranian provinces.
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