Iran has executed its former deputy defense minister Alireza Akbari, who also had British nationality, after he was found guilty of spying for the United Kingdom. Tehran confirmed the execution on Saturday, but it was unclear when it actually took place.
The British government responded furiously to the execution, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak calling it a “callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime,” the BBC said.
Iran’s rulers had “no respect for the human rights of their own people,” Sunak said, while British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly warned that Akbari’s execution would “not stand unchallenged.”
Akbari, who was arrested in 2019, served as deputy defense minister during the term of former Iranian reformist president Mohammad Khatami. His family said last week that they had been told to make a “final visit” to his jail and that he had been moved to solitary confinement.
The former minister had denied the charges against him, saying he was drugged and tortured into making a confession. He was the fifth person Iran has executed since December. The four others were hanged for involvement in what the Iranian regime called violence related to the protests that began in September 2022.