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In
a separate audio recording broadcast by BBC Persian on
Wednesday, Akbari said he was tortured in detention over months
to confess to crimes he had not committed.
Iran sentenced the former deputy defence minister, who holds
dual Iranian-British citizenship, to death on charges of spying
for Britain, Iranian state media reported on Wednesday.
Britain described the death sentence as politically motivated
and called for his immediate release. British officials did not
immediately comment about the video clips aired by Iran's state
media.
"They wanted to know about high-ranking officials depending on
the major developments ... for example he (the British agent)
asked me whether Fakhrizadeh could be involved in such and such
projects and I said why not," Akbari said in one of the video
clips.
Scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, killed in a 2020 attack outside
Tehran, was widely seen by Western intelligence as the
mastermind of clandestine Iranian efforts to develop nuclear
weapons. Tehran denied that.
Iran’s state media often airs purported confessions by suspects
in politically charged cases.
In the audio recording broadcast by BBC Persian, Akbari said he
was forced to confess to crimes he had not committed.
"I was interrogated and tortured for over 3,500 hours in 10
months. All of that were recorded on camera ...By using the
force of gun and making death threats they made me confess to
false and baseless claims," Akbari said in the audio message.
Akbari was a close ally of Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s
Supreme National Security Council who served as defence minister
from 1997 to 2005 when Akbari was his deputy.
"He was one of the most important agents of the British
intelligence service in Iran who had access to some very
sensitive centres in the country," Iran's Intelligence Ministry
said. "Akbari had fully, knowingly provided information to the
enemy's spy service."
(Additional reporting by Elwely Elwelly Writing by Michael
Georgy and Parisa HafeziEditing by Toby Chopra, Andrew Cawthorne
and Nick Macfie)
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