Britain has said that it will impose sanctions on Iran’s prosecutor general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, following the execution of dual British citizen Alireza Akbari on spying accusations.
“The UK has sanctioned Iran’s Prosecutor General. Sanctioning him today underlines our disgust at Alireza Akbari’s execution. The Prosecutor General is at the heart of Iran’s use of the death penalty. We’re holding the regime to account for its appalling human rights violations,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a tweet.
The Iranian judiciary’s official news outlet Mizan on Saturday reported that Akbari, who is a British-Iranian dual national, was executed, without specifying when the execution took place.
The former deputy Iranian defence minister was arrested in 2019 and was convicted of spying for the UK. Iran’s intelligence ministry had described the British-Iranian as “one of the most important agents of the British intelligence service in Iran”. But Akbari denied of any wrongdoing.
Several nations joined the UK in condemning Iran for the act and lashed out at the ruling regime.
Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the execution as a “callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime”.
The United States had also joined calls, with US diplomat Vedant Patel saying that “his execution would be unconscionable” and condemned the charges against him as “politically motivated”.
France summoned Iran’s top diplomat in Paris to lodge a protest over Akbari’s execution while issuing a warning that Iran’s “repeated violations of international law cannot go unanswered”.
The UK Foreign Office has been clamouring for Akbari’s release and repeatedly raised the issue with Iranian officials. They even sought consular access, but Iran’s government does not recognise dual nationality for Iranians.
