Iran on Saturday disclosed that it executed a British-Iranian dual national after he was sentenced to death for spying for the United Kingdom, drawing strong condemnation from Britain and international rights groups.
According to the judiciary’s Mizan Online website, Alireza Akbari, 61, was executed after being found guilty of “corruption on earth and undermining the country’s internal and exterior security by passing on intelligence.” It did not specify the time or location of the execution.
According to Mizan, Akbari, who was detained more than two years prior, worked as a spy for the British MI6 covert intelligence branch and was paid about $2 million for his services.
The execution, according to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, left him ‘appalled.’
‘This was a callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of their own people,” Sunak tweeted, adding his thoughts were with ‘Alireza’s friends and family’.
Read Also: Iran Top Diplomat Makes Case For Restoration Of Saudi Ties
UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly warned on Twitter that the execution would not go unchallenged, before announcing sanctions on Iran’s prosecutor general to underline Britain’s ‘disgust’ at Akbari’s execution.
France’s foreign ministry condemned the execution ‘in the strongest terms’ and said it cannot go ‘unanswered’, while President Emmanuel Macron denounced a ‘heinous and barbaric act’.
Iran summoned the British ambassador to protest what it described as “unconventional interventions”, after Britain said it would summon Tehran’s envoy.
Africa Today News, New York reports that news of the hanging came only hours after the United States had joined its ally Britain in calling for Iran not to go ahead with the execution.
US diplomat Vedant Patel said on Friday that Washington was greatly concerned by reports Akbari had been “drugged, tortured while in custody, interrogated for thousands of hours and forced to make false confessions”.
Amnesty International called the execution ‘abhorrent’.
It tweeted that Akbari had been subjected to ‘torture and other ill-treatment” such as being “forcibly administered chemical substances and being held in prolonged solitary confinement’.
Media outlets in Iran, which does not recognise dual nationality for its citizens, had broadcast a video this week in which Akbari appeared to speak of his contacts with Britain.