Iran EXECUTES Brit for claiming he was an MI6 spy

Iran has executed British-Iranian citizen Alireza Akbari, the Mizan judicial news agency reported on Saturday, after sentencing him to death on charges of spying for Britain.

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said on Friday that Iran must not go ahead with the execution of Akbari, a former Iranian deputy defense minister. Britain had described the death sentence as politically motivated and called for his immediate release.

“Alireza Akbari, who was sentenced to death on charges of corruption on the ground and extensive action against the internal and external security of the country through spying for the British government intelligence service…was executed,” Mizan said in a Tweet.

He accused him of receiving 1,805,000 euros, 265,000 pounds and 50,000 dollars for espionage.

In an audio recording broadcast by BBC Persian on Wednesday, Akbari said he had confessed to crimes he had not committed after extensive torture.

Iranian state media aired a video on Thursday that they said showed Akbari played a role in the 2020 assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, killed in a 2020 attack outside Tehran, which authorities they blamed Israel at the time.

In the video, Akbari did not confess to his involvement in the murder, but said that a British agent had asked for information on Fakhrizadeh.

Iran’s state media often broadcast alleged confessions by 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.

Ties between London and Tehran have soured in recent months as efforts to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact, to which Britain is a party, have stalled.

Britain has also criticized the Islamic Republic’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests, sparked by the death in custody of a young Iranian-Kurdish woman in September.

Earlier this week, Akbari’s wife, Maryam, said she was asked by an official to visit her husband in prison for a “final meeting” before the state assassination.

He was transferred to solitary confinement, a sign that execution was imminent after the death sentence handed down by the Revolutionary Court.

An audio message received by bbc persia of Mr. Akbari before his death claims that he has been tortured and forced to confess on camera to crimes he did not commit.

He says he was forced to take psychedelic drugs and interrogated for ten months.

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry described the politician as “one of the most important agents of the British spy service.”

He previously worked in Iran’s military and security institutions and has joint Iranian and British citizenship.

He then served as an international deputy to the Ministry of Defense under two-star General Ali Shamkhani, who served from 1997 to 2005.

Shamkhani is the current secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, a key decision-making body.

Some believe the charges against Akbari may be politically motivated by Shamkhani’s rivals.

Iran claims that after Akbari was identified as a spy, Tehran authorities used him to mislead Britain with “targeted information”.

At one point, Akbari was in Europe, but said he left Iran legally and was financially involved in various companies on the continent.

But Iran has accused him of ‘going off’ and running a ‘front company’, and his financial lawyers have been accused of being intelligence agents.