Today, Thursday, the official Iranian News Agency (IRNA) published a video clip that it said showed that Ali Reza Akbari, former deputy defense minister, had played a role in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020.
This came following official media reported on Wednesday that the Iranian authorities had sentenced Akbari, who holds dual Iranian and British citizenship, to death, on charges of spying for Britain.
The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence said that Akbari “was one of the most important agents of the British intelligence service in Iran, and he was authorized to enter some very sensitive centers in the country… Akbari knowingly provided information to the enemy’s spy service.”
Akbari was close to Ali Shamkhani, Secretary General of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, who held the position of Minister of Defense between 1997 and 2005, and at that time Akbari was his deputy.
For its part, the British government condemned the death sentence issued once morest Akbari, and said that it was politically motivated, calling for his immediate release.
Prominent Iranian military scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was killed in the 2020 attack, is widely seen by Western intelligence as the mastermind of a covert Iranian effort to produce nuclear weapons, which Tehran has denied.
