DUBAI - Iran has executed a British-Iranian national who once served as its deputy defence minister, its judiciary reported on Saturday, defying calls from London for his release after he was handed the death sentence on charges of spying for Britain.

Britain, which had declared the case against Alireza Akbari as politically motivated, condemned the execution and said it would not stand unchallenged. 

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called it “a callous and cowardly act carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of their own people”. 

The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported the execution early on Saturday, without saying when it had taken place.

Late on Friday, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly had said Iran must not follow through with the sentence – a call echoed by Washington. 

The execution looks set to pile more pressure on Iran’s long-strained ties with the West, which have deteriorated further since talks to revive its 2015 nuclear deal hit deadlock and as Teheran unleashed a deadly crackdown on protesters last year.

In an audio recording purportedly from Akbari and broadcast by BBC Persian on Wednesday, he said he had confessed to crimes he had not committed after extensive torture.

“Alireza Akbari, who was sentenced to death on charges of corruption on earth and extensive action against the country’s internal and external security through espionage for the British government’s intelligence service... was executed,” Mizan said.

The Mizan report accused Akbari, arrested in 2019, of receiving payments of €1,805,000 (S$2.6 million), £265,000 (S$428,000) and US$50,000 (S$66,000) for spying.

Mr Sunak said on Twitter he was “appalled by the execution”. Mr Cleverly said in a statement that the execution would “not stand unchallenged”. “We will be summoning the Iranian Charge d’Affaires to make clear our disgust at Iran’s actions,” he added.

British statements on the case have not addressed the Iranian charge that Akbari spied for Britain. 

Iranian state media broadcast a video on Thursday that they said showed Akbari played a role in the 2020 assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, killed in a 2020 attack outside Teheran that authorities blamed at the time on Israel.

In the video, Akbari did not confess to involvement in the assassination but said a British agent had asked for information about Fakhrizadeh.

Iran’s state media often airs purported confessions by suspects in politically charged cases. Reuters could not establish the authenticity of the state media video and audio, or when or where they were recorded.

In the audio recording broadcast by BBC Persian, Akbari said: “With more than 3,500 hours of torture, psychedelic drugs, and physiological and psychological pressure methods, they took away my will. They drove me to the brink of madness... and forced me to make false confessions by force of arms and death threats.”  

Akbari was a close ally of Mr Ali Shamkhani, now secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who was defence minister from 1997 to 2005, when Akbari was his deputy as part of the administration of reformist President Mohammad Khatami..

Reflecting Iran’s worsening ties with the West, London-Teheran relations have deteriorated in recent months as efforts have stalled to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact, to which Britain is a party. 

Britain has also been critical of the Islamic Republic’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests, sparked by the death in custody of a young Iranian-Kurdish woman in September.

Iran has issued dozens of death sentences as part of the crackdown on the unrest, executing at least four people. 

A British foreign office minister said on Thursday that Britain was actively considering proscribing Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation, but that it has not reached a final decision.

An Iranian state TV report broadcast on Saturday said the intelligence ministry had had Akbari under surveillance and arrested him in 1998. He was arrested on espionage charges again in 2008 before being freed on bail and leaving the country, it said. Reuters could not independently verify the details. REUTERS