A former British-Iranian leader has been executed in Iran after allegations of espionage. Like the justice portal misan announced, Aliresa Akbari was killed on Saturday. He had been sentenced to death in a espionage trial for leaking secrets. Akbari, his wife and brother had always vehemently denied the allegations.
According to media reports, Akbari was arrested in 2019. He was Iran’s Deputy Minister of Defense between 1997 and 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.
The Iranian media recently reported that Akbari played a role in the murder of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020. A video was also broadcast in which Akbari stated that he was not involved in the murder. However, a British spy questioned him about Fakhrizadeh. The West suspects Iran of wanting to develop a nuclear bomb. The government in Tehran rejects this, but does not allow UN inspections of its nuclear facilities.
Power struggle in Tehran
According to observers, the case is ultimately about an internal power struggle. The real goal of the hardliners around President Ebrahim Raisi is to discredit Security Council Secretary Shamkhanis, they say. He is said to have criticized the current police violence against demonstrators and tried to mediate.
Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was “appalled” by the execution. “This was a cruel and cowardly act by a barbaric regime that has no respect for the human rights of its own people. My thoughts are with Aliresa’s friends and family,” Sunak wrote on Twitter. His Secretary of State James Cleverly spoke of a barbaric act that must have consequences.
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.