Majid Jamali Fashi. PHoto: www.panorama.am/en.

Majid Jamali Fashi’s execution in Iran this week is being linked to the Wikileaks’ release of U.S. diplomatic cables, by The Times of London.

The UK paper reports that a Birmingham University professor said information detailed in a cable from the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, which identified a “licensed martial arts coach and trainer” who educated U.S. government personnel on how Iran pressures masters of martial arts to train the country’s Revolutionary Guards and Basij militamen, may have led Iran to arrest, convict, and hang Fashi.

Fashi, who was a professional kickboxer, was convicted of helping Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency assassinate Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, an Iranian nuclear scientist, two years ago, and was in Baku just days before the embassy cable was published.

Iranian authorities claimed that Fashi admitted to receiving Mossad training in Tel Aviv, before returning to Tehran to plan the assassination of Ali-Mohammadi.

“Alternatively it could have been used as a pretext against him; to set him up as a person who could take the fall for the assassination,” Scott Lucas, the Birmingham University professor added.