By Ben Kerrigan-
Sanctions imposed on Iran after the execution of British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari need to be the most severe in order to signify the Uk’s zero tolerance for Iran’s Human Rights Violation evident in its level of wickedness and deception.
Akbar was executed on Saturday after Iranian authorities claimed he was an MI6 spy who received $2m for it, charges his family and the Foreign Office deny. Iran has provided no conclusive evidence for their allegation.
Relations between Britain and Iran immediately went downhill over the unjustified killing. The most severe sanctions need to be imposed on Iran
Britain had already summoned the most senior Iranian diplomat in the UK to the Foreign Office to demand an explanation and could go as far as including the proscription of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a move that is also being considered by the EU.
The Foreign Office has known about Akbari’s detention for a long time, but had chosen, in line with the wishes of the family, to put private pressure on the regime to secure his release. He was arrested in 2019 after he returned to Tehran from London to advise the regime on the future of the Iran nuclear deal.
Smuggled recording revealed that Akbari was subjected to 3,500 hours of torturing to produce a confession to the charges against him.
The UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, wrote on Twitter, said: “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.”
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, had called his execution a “cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of their own people”.
Sir Simon Shercliff, the British ambassador to Iran, was summoned as part of an Iranian claim that the British embassy had been used as a base from which to recruit Akbari, a former deputy defence minister in the reformist government led by Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005.
On Saturday night, Cleverly announced that Shercliff would be temporarily withdrawn from Iran as a diplomatic response to Akbari’s execution.
In a recording released by his family, Akbari said security authorities had pressured judges to issue a sentence carrying the death penalty against him. “The tribunal agreed to release me on a low bail but the intelligence ministry stopped that. The supreme court voted against the death penalty, but the intelligence ministry imposed its will by threatening the judge.”
In the smuggled audio recording, Akbari said he had made false confessions as a result of torture. “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,” he said.
“They would tell me: ‘If you resist, we will send you to the dark cells of Evin prison where you’ll face an interrogator with a whip’.”
Iran which claims to be a Muslim country is like many Islamic nations with conduct that disgrace the peaceful message of their religion. Lies and wickedness by the regime expose their heartless and fake claim to piety.
Iran meanwhile summoned the British ambassador to Tehran, the Iranian foreign ministry said, hours after Akbari, 61, who once served as its deputy minister of defense, was executed.
Akbari was hanged after being convicted of “corruption on earth and harming the country’s internal and external security by passing on intelligence.” I