Iran has executed a British Iranian national.
Ali Reza Akbari was a former Iranian deputy defense minister and had been charged with spying for Britain.
On Saturday, Iran’s Mizan news agency announced Akbari’s hanging death, but it was not clear when the execution took place. He was arrested in 2019.
Amnesty Iran posted on Twitter that Akbari’s hanging displays Iranian authorities’ “abhorrent assault on the right to life. The use of the death penalty is appalling under all circumstances.”
Britain and the United States had urged Iran not to carry out the death penalty.
"This was a callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of their own people," British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak posted on Twitter.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also posted on Twitter, "This barbaric act deserves condemnation in the strongest possible terms. This will not stand unchallenged."
