On Thursday, Iran claimed that the former official, Ali Reza Akbari, who was sentenced to death, “played a role in the assassination of the country’s top nuclear scientist.”
On Thursday, the official Iranian Islamic News Agency published a video clip, which it said showed that the British-Iranian citizen, Ali Reza Akbari, played a role in the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the country’s largest nuclear scientist, in 2020.
Andissued by the Iranian judiciary A death sentence was imposed on the former official, Ali Reza Akbari, after he was convicted of “espionage for Britain,” according to the semi-official “Tasnim” agency, on Wednesday.
London called for the release of Akbari, who holds dual Iranian and British citizenship.
A British Foreign Office spokesperson said in a statement: “We support Mr Akbari’s family and have raised his case repeatedly with the Iranian authorities.”
“Our priority is to ensure his immediate release, and we have reiterated our request to allow him access to urgent consular advice,” he added.
The former Iranian deputy defense minister was arrested, in 2019, under the pretext of “espionage for Britain”, accusations he denied his relationship with.
On the other hand, the former head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoun Abbasi, said, in November 2021, that Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen FakhrizadehHe had worked on a nuclear weapons program, during a lengthy interview with the “IRNA” news agency.
This interview with Abbasi came on the occasion of the first anniversary of the assassination of Fakhri Zadeh, east of Tehran, in 2020.
Abbasi, an Iranian nuclear scientist, added that Fakhrizadeh was tasked with not only defending Iran, but also supporting Iranian-backed proxies.
Abbasi accused Israel of assassinating Fakhri Zadeh for “knowing his danger,” and said that it was “looking for other similar targets,” and that he had worked with him in the field of “nuclear defense.” Abbasi claimed that Fakhrizadeh had been targeted by “enemies of Iran” for years.
Fakhrizadeh was shot dead in the Damavand area, east of Tehran, in November 2020, and Iran blamed Israel for the assassination and threatened to take revenge. Israel neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the attack.
