ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iranian state media on Thursday published a video purportedly showing Iranian-British dual national Alireza Akbari confessing to being involved in the killing of a top nuclear scientist almost three years ago.
The video depicts Akbari, who appears blindfolded, reportedly at the time of his detention by agents of the country’s intelligence ministry in 2019, and attempts to portray him as a spy who passed on classified intelligence to the United Kingdom.
Akbari, an ex-deputy defense minister, has been sentenced to death on charges of espionage.
In an audio message published by BBC Persian, Akbari denies being involved in espionage, saying he was subjected to 3,500 hours, over a span of 10 months, of “physiological and psychological” torture to push him towards confessing crimes he says he did not commit.
The UK’s foreign secretary has called on Iran to halt the pending execution and to release Akbari.
Iran must halt the execution of British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari and immediately release him.
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) January 11, 2023
This is a politically motivated act by a barbaric regime that has total disregard for human life.
The video commences by stating that Akbari was initially detained in the year 1387 of the Iranian calendar, corresponding to around 14 years ago, but that he was released on bail and allowed to travel to the UK. No explanation was provided on how an official charged with spying was freed and permitted to leave the country.
Further on in the video, which is evidently highly edited and disjointed, authorities try to depict Akbari as being involved in the killing of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
Akbari continues to casually mention Fakhrizadeh but there is no evidence in the entire 9:09 minute video that he was involved in the assassination. At one point, the video suggests that a British intelligence agent may have asked Akbari if Fakhrizadeh was “involved in a project like this,” to which Akbari responds “why not.” The language in the video is extremely vague yet it is being used in order to frame the official as being involved.
Fakhrizadeh was director of Research and Innovation at the Ministry of Defense and had been sanctioned by the US in 2019. He was killed near Tehran in November 2020, with Iranian officials at the time largely attributing the assassination to Israel.
Akbari served under Ali Shamkhani when he was defense minister in the reformist government led by former president Mohammad Khatami.
The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan online website on Wednesday confirmed that the ex-deputy minister has been found guilty on the charges brought against him of spying for the UK and that the Supreme Court had rejected his appeal.
It also cites the Ministry of Intelligence as saying that Akbari was caught when he passed on false information that was intentionally fed to him.
In December, four people were hanged after being accused of working with and spying for Israeli intelligence.
There are a number of dual and foreign nationals being held in Iranian prisoners on charges of spying for foreign governments with rights groups accusing Iran of using them as bargaining chips with world powers.
In its annual world report on global rights conditions published on Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) slammed Iran for conducting unfair trial and obtaining confessions under duress, as well as for charges brought against dual nationals.
“Iranian courts, and particularly revolutionary courts, regularly fall far short of providing fair trials and use confessions likely obtained under torture as evidence in court,” the report read.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Intelligence Organization continued to arrest Iranian dual and foreign nationals on vague charges such as “cooperating with a hostile state,” it added.
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