British citizen was executed in Iran
2023.01.14 02:07
British citizen was executed in Iran
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – The judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported on Saturday that Iran has executed British-Iranian Alireza Akbari after executing the former Iranian deputy defense minister on charges of spying for Britain.
The U.S. State Department echoed British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly’s late Friday statement that Iran must not carry out the execution. Britain had demanded his release and said that the death penalty was politically motivated.
Early on Saturday, Mizan tweeted that the sentence had been carried out, but she did not specify when.
According to the statement, “Alireza Akbari, who was sentenced to death on charges of corruption on earth and extensive action against the country’s internal and external security through espionage for the British government’s intelligence service… was executed.” Akbari had been accused of both of these offenses.
The report said that Akbari, who was arrested in 2019 and charged with spying, had received $50,000, 265,000 pounds, and 1,805,000 euros.
He claimed that he had confessed to crimes he had not committed after extensive torture in an audio recording that was said to come from Akbari and was broadcast by BBC Persian on Wednesday.
On Thursday, Iranian state media showed a video that, according to them, showed that Akbari was involved in the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020. Fakhrizadeh was killed in a 2020 attack outside of Tehran that authorities at the time blamed on Israel.
While claiming that a British agent had requested information regarding Fakhrizadeh, Akbari did not admit to being involved in the assassination in the video.
Presumptuous confessions made by suspects in politically charged cases are frequently covered by Iran’s state media.
The state media’s video and audio were not authentic, and Reuters was unable to determine when or where they were recorded.
As efforts to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact, to which Britain is a party, have stalled, ties between London and Tehran have deteriorated in recent months.
The violent crackdown on anti-government protests in the Islamic Republic, sparked by the September death in custody of a young Iranian-Kurdish woman, has also been criticized by Britain.
Thursday, a minister from the British foreign office said that Britain was thinking about listing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization but hadn’t decided yet.
As part of its crackdown on the unrest, Iran has executed dozens of people, including at least four.
Akbari claimed in the audio recording that was broadcast by BBC Persian that he had made deceptive confessions as a result of being tortured.
“They took away my will through more than 3,500 hours of torture, psychedelic drugs, and physiological and psychological pressure methods. “They forced me to make false confessions by force of arms and death threats,” he stated. “They drove me to the brink of madness.”
Ali Shamkhani, who is now the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was the defense minister from 1997 to 2005, when Akbari was his deputy. Akbari was a close ally of Shamkhani.
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