EPA
NOS News•
The Iranian government has summoned the British ambassador to Iran to the Foreign Office. According to the state news agency Mizan, the ambassador had to report there because of “unusual interference” by the United Kingdom in Iranian security affairs, referring to the British response to the execution of British-Iranian Alireza Akbari.
Earlier today it was announced that the former politician was hanged in Iran for alleged espionage activities for the British secret service. Prime Minister Sunak of the United Kingdom called that a “ruthless and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for human rights”.
Sanctions for Attorney General
British Foreign Secretary Cleverly warns that the British will not let the execution go their way. He has summoned the Iranian chargé d’affaires in the UK and imposed sanctions on the influential Iranian Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri. His assets will be frozen and the Attorney General will not be allowed to enter the UK.
According to the British government, Montazeri was responsible for Akbari’s death. “The Attorney General is at the center of Iran’s barbaric use of the death penalty for political ends,” Cleverly said.
In addition to the British government, other Western ministers are also outraged by the execution in Iran. The US ambassador to the UK calls it “repulsive and sickening”. France’s President Macron speaks of a “heinous and barbaric act”.
The French foreign minister has summoned the Iranian chargé d’affaires to Paris “to express our indignation”, it says in a statement. “He has also been warned: Iran’s repeated violations of international law cannot go unanswered.”
Anti-government protests
The reactions show that the already troubled relations between Iran and the West have reached a new low with the execution of Akbari. Due to the Iranian response to the massive anti-government protests in the country, that relationship had already deteriorated considerably in recent months.
The Iranian regime, which is trying to suppress the protests by force, blames the West for the demonstrations. Thousands of demonstrators have been arrested and more are coming stories out on torture in Iranian prisons. Several Iranians have been executed for their role in the protests.
‘Information in exchange for perfume’
The British-Iranian Akbari was also probably tortured before his death. On Wednesday, an audio recording of the former politician came out in which he says that he was tortured for 3500 hours during ten months so that he would make a confession.
According to Iranian authorities, Akbari was involved in the 2020 liquidation of a top Iranian scientist. The regime in Tehran published a heavily edited video on Thursday that, according to Iran, proves this. In the video, Akbari makes no confession, but does say that a British secret agent had asked him for information about the scientist.
Akbari also says in the audio clip that Iran accused him of extracting classified information from Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s highest security council. He would have done that in exchange for a bottle of perfume and a shirt. In his time as a politician, Akbari was a key ally of Shamkhani, who was then defense minister.
Akbari was a prominent security adviser and politician in Iran from the 1980s. He worked, among other things, at the Ministry of Defense and played an important role in the establishment of the ceasefire between Iran and Iraq in 1988. After 2008 he moved to the United Kingdom. He was probably arrested by the Iranian authorities around 2019 during a visit to Iran.
