For alleged espionage
Iran executes British-Iranian ex-politicians
1/14/2023 8:43 am
Executions are reported in Iran. The Islamist regime does not stop at its own ranks. Aliresa Akbari is sentenced to death for alleged espionage. The former deputy defense minister, who also has British citizenship, has probably fallen victim to an internal power struggle in Tehran.
Iran has executed a former British-Iranian leader on charges of espionage. This is reported by the Misan justice portal. Iran had sentenced Aliresa Akbari to death in an espionage trial for leaking secrets. Akbari, his wife and brother had vehemently denied the allegations in recent days.
Akbari, arrested in 2019, was a former Ministry of Defense employee and held both British and Iranian citizenship. With his conviction, Iran claims to have unmasked one of the “most important agents for the British secret service”. The court accused Akbari of divulging state secrets to British intelligence. In a tape released by BBC Persian last Wednesday, Akbari says he confessed to crimes he did not commit after being severely tortured.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary James Cleverly had previously criticized the planned execution as “politically motivated” and called for the man to be released immediately – but without success. He described Iran as a “barbaric regime” that has no regard for human life.
Internal power struggle in Tehran?
Akbari was Iran’s deputy defense minister from 1997 to 2002. The minister at the time was Ali Shamchani, who is now Secretary of the Security Council, the country’s most important decision-making body. Between 2014 and 2015, Akbari accompanied the Iran delegation to the nuclear negotiations in Vienna as a military advisor. According to the Iranian security authorities, he is said to have passed on secret information to the British secret service in both functions.
According to reports, the case could also point to an internal power struggle in Tehran. As a high-ranking politician in the Defense Ministry, Akbari maintained close ties to politicians who were trying to mediate and reconcile after the recent wave of protests, the UK-based online medium amwaj.media reported. The real goal of the hardliners around President Ebrahim Raisi is to discredit Shamkhani, they say. He is said to have criticized the police violence against the demonstrators and tried to mediate.
It is unclear how Akbari, as deputy defense secretary and military adviser to the Security Council, was able to obtain British citizenship in the first place. Dual nationals are not allowed to hold top political offices in Iran.
There are repeated reports of the arrests, arrests and executions of Iranians who are accused of working for foreign secret services, above all for the Israeli Mossad or the US secret service CIA. The Iranian data cannot usually be independently verified. Both the arrests and the trials are kept secret.