- Alireza Akbari was a former Iranian Defense Minister
- Arrested in 2019, he was accused of spying for Britain
- UK’s Sunak calls it ‘a cruel and cowardly act’
- Britain had said Iran did not have to comply with the ruling
DUBAI/LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Iran has executed a British-Iranian citizen who once served as deputy defense minister, its judiciary said on Saturday, defying calls from London for his release after he was convicted to death accused of spying for Great Britain.
Britain, which had declared the case against Alireza Akbari politically motivated and called for his release, condemned the execution. Akbari, 61, was arrested in 2019.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called it “a cruel and cowardly act carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of its own people”.
The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported the execution without saying when it had taken place. Late on Friday, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said Iran should not comply with the ruling, a call echoed by Washington.
The execution looks set to increase pressure on Iran’s long strained ties with the West, which have further soured since talks to revive its 2015 nuclear deal stalled and Tehran unleashed a deadly crackdown on protesters last year.
In an audio recording purportedly of Akbari and broadcast by BBC Persian on Wednesday, he said he had confessed to crimes he had not committed after extensive torture.
“Alireza Akbari, who was sentenced to death on charges of corruption in the land and extensive action against the internal and external security of the country by spying for the intelligence service of the British government … was executed,” Mizan said.
The Mizan report accused Akbari of receiving payments of €1,805,000, £265,000 and $50,000 for espionage.
Sunak said on Twitter that he was “horrified by the execution”. He smartly said in a statement that he “would not go unchallenged.” “We will summon the Iranian charge d’affaires to make clear our disgust at Iran’s actions.”
British statements on the case have not addressed the Iranian accusation that Akbari spied for Britain.
Iranian state media, which has portrayed Akbari as a super spy, released a video on Thursday that it said showed he played a role in the 2020 assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, killed in an attack outside Tehran that the authorities blamed. Israel time.
In the video, Akbari did not confess his involvement in the killing, but said a British agent had asked for information about Fakhrizadeh.
Iran’s state media often airs alleged confessions of suspects in politically charged cases.
Reuters was unable to establish the authenticity of the state media video and audio, or when or where they were recorded.
Akbari was a close ally of Ali Shamkhani, now secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who was defense minister from 1997 to 2005, when Akbari was his deputy as part of the administration of reformist president Mohammad Khatami.
He fought during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s as a member of the Revolutionary Guard.
It marks a rare instance of the Islamic Republic executing a senior official or former official. One of the last occasions was in 1984, when Iranian Navy Commander Bahram Afzali was executed after being accused of spying for the Soviet Union.
‘3,500 HOURS OF TORTURE’
Reflecting Iran’s worsening ties with the West, relations between London and Tehran have deteriorated in recent months as efforts to revive the nuclear deal, from which the UK is part
The UK has also criticized the Islamic Republic’s crackdown on anti-government protests, sparked by the death in custody of a young Iranian Kurdish woman in September.
Iran has handed down dozens of death sentences as part of the crackdown, executing at least four people.
Britain is actively considering banning Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization but has not made a final decision, a British foreign minister said Thursday.
In the audio recording broadcast by BBC Persian, Akbari said he had made false confessions as a result of torture.
“Through more than 3,500 hours of torture, psychedelic drugs, and methods of physiological and psychological pressure, they took away my will. They drove me to the brink of insanity… and forced me to make false confessions at gunpoint and death threats,” he said.
An Iranian state television report broadcast on Saturday – details of which Reuters could not independently verify – said he was arrested on espionage charges in 2008 before being released on bail and leaving the country.
He said that in 2009 he went to Austria under the pretext of medical treatment, then to Spain and finally to England.
In an interview with BBC Persian broadcast on Friday, Akbari’s brother Mehdi said he had returned to Iran in 2019 based on an invitation from Shamkhani.
Reporting from the Dubai newsroom, Michael Holden in London; Written by Tom Perry; Editing by William Mallard and Angus MacSwan
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