In this picture launched by KhabarOnline News Agency on Sept. 18, 2019, Ali Reza Akbari speaks in an interview in Iran.

KhabarOnline News Agency through AP

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KhabarOnline News Agency through AP

In this picture launched by KhabarOnline News Agency on Sept. 18, 2019, Ali Reza Akbari speaks in an interview in Iran.

KhabarOnline News Agency through AP

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran mentioned Saturday it had executed a twin Iranian-British nationwide who as soon as held a high-ranking place within the nation’s protection ministry regardless of worldwide warnings to halt his dying sentence, additional escalating tensions with the West amid the nationwide protests now shaking the Islamic Republic.

The hanging of Ali Reza Akbari, a detailed ally of high safety official Ali Shamkhani, suggests an ongoing energy wrestle inside Iran’s theocracy because it struggles to comprise the demonstrations over the September dying of Mahsa Amini. It additionally harkened again to the mass purges of the navy that instantly adopted Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Akbari’s hanging drew speedy anger from London, which together with the U.S. and others has sanctioned Iran over the protests and its supplying Russia with the bomb-carrying drones now focusing on Ukraine.

“The execution of British-Iranian Ali Reza Akbari is a barbaric act that deserves condemnation in the strongest possible terms,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly mentioned in a press release. “Through this politically motivated act, the Iranian regime has once again shown its callous disregard for human life.”

He added: “This will not stand unchallenged.”

Iran’s Mizan information company, related to the nation’s judiciary, introduced Akbari’s hanging with out saying when it occurred. However, there have been rumors he had been executed days earlier.

Iran has alleged, with out offering proof, that Akbari served as a supply for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, recognized popularly as MI6. A prolonged assertion issued by Iran’s judiciary claimed Akbari acquired massive sums of cash, his British citizenship and different assist in London for offering data to the intelligence service.

However, Iran lengthy has accused those that journey overseas or have Western ties of spying, usually utilizing them as bargaining chips in negotiations.

Akbari, who ran a non-public assume tank, is believed to have been arrested in 2019, however particulars of his case solely emerged in latest weeks. Those accused of espionage and different crimes associated to nationwide safety are normally tried behind closed doorways, the place rights teams say they don’t select their very own legal professionals and will not be allowed to see proof towards them.

Iranian state tv aired a extremely edited video of Akbari discussing the allegations, footage that resembled different claimed confessions that activists have described as coerced confessions.

The BBC Farsi-language service aired an audio message from Akbari on Wednesday, wherein he described being tortured.

“By using physiological and psychological methods, they broke my will, drove me to madness and forced me to do whatever they wanted,” Akbari mentioned within the audio. “By the force of gun and death threats they made me confess to false and corrupt claims.”

Iran has not commented on the torture claims. However, the United Nations human rights chief has warned Iran towards the “weaponization” of the dying penalty as a way to place down the protests.

On Friday, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel additionally criticized Akbari’s pending execution.

“The charges against Ali Reza Akbari and his sentencing to execution were politically motivated. His execution would be unconscionable,” he mentioned. “We are greatly disturbed by the reports that Mr. Akbari was drugged, tortured while in custody, interrogated for thousands of hours, and forced to make false confessions.”

He added: “More broadly, Iran’s practices of arbitrary and unjust detentions, forced confessions and politically motivated executions are completely unacceptable and must end.”

Iran is without doubt one of the world’s high executioners. However, it wasn’t instantly clear when the final time of a former or present high-ranking protection official had been executed. In 1984, Iran executed its navy chief Adm. Baharam Afzali alongside 9 different navy folks on the cost of spying for Soviet Union.

Iran’s authorities for months has been attempting to allege — with out providing proof — that international nations have fomented the unrest gripping the Islamic Republic because the dying of Amini in September after her detention by the morality police. Protesters say they’re indignant over the collapse of the financial system, heavy-handed policing and the entrenched energy of the nation’s Islamic clergy.

For a number of years, Iran has been locked in a shadow warfare with the United States and Israel, marked by covert assaults on its disputed nuclear program. The killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist in 2020, which Iran blamed on Israel, indicated international intelligence providers had made main inroads. Iran talked about that scientist in discussing Akbari’s case, although it is unclear what present data, if any, he would have had on him.

Akbari had beforehand led the implementation of a 1988 cease-fire between Iran and Iraq following their devastating eight-year warfare, working carefully with U.N. observers. He served as a deputy protection minister underneath Shamkhani throughout reformist President Mohammad Khatami’s administration, seemingly additional making his credentials suspicious to hard-liners inside Iran’s theocracy.

Today, Shamkhani is the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, the nation’s high safety physique which Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei oversees. Akbari’s audio message aired by the BBC Persian included him saying he was accused of acquiring top-secret data from Shamkhani “in exchange for a bottle of perfume and a shirt.” However, it seems Shamkhani stays in his function.

The anti-government protests now shaking Iran are one of many largest challenges to the Islamic Republic because the 1979 revolution.

At least 520 protesters have been killed and 19,400 folks have been arrested, in accordance with Human Rights Activists in Iran, a bunch that has been monitoring the unrest. Iranian authorities haven’t supplied official figures on deaths or arrests.

Iran has executed four people after convicting them of costs linked to the protests in equally criticized trials, together with assaults on safety forces.