In defiance of international warnings, Iran has hanged an Iranian-British national who it says without evidence was a spy for British intelligence.

Ali Reza Akbari, who was once a top-ranked Iran defense ministry official, was hanged in the midst of calls from around the world to stop his death sentence, Reuters reported Saturday.

Akbari’s death has ramped up the ongoing internal dissension in the country over the Islamic Republic’s heavy-handed treatment of women and a collapsing economy. 

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the hanging of Akbari politically motivated and “a callous and cowardly act carried out by a barbaric regime.”

Akbari was a close ally of top security official Ali Shamkhani and his hanging indicates a roiling power struggle within Iran’s theocracy heightened since protests over the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, Reuters said.

Iran’s Mizan news agency announced Akbari’s hanging without saying when it happened though he may have been executed days earlier.

Iran claimed Akbari was a source for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, known popularly as MI6. A lengthy statement issued by Iran’s judiciary claimed Akbari received large sums of money, his British citizenship and other help in London for providing information to the intelligence service.

But Iran has long been known for charging people who travel abroad or have Western ties of spying — sometimes to use them as leverage in negotiations.

Akbari, who ran a private think tank, is believed to have been arrested in 2019, but details of his case only emerged in recent weeks. Those accused of espionage and other crimes related to national security are usually tried behind closed doors, where rights groups say they do not choose their own lawyers and are not allowed to see evidence against them.

Iranian state television aired a highly edited video of Akbari discussing the allegations, footage that resembled other claimed confessions that activists have described as coerced confessions.

The BBC Farsi-language service aired an audio message from Akbari on Wednesday, in which he described being tortured.

“By using physiological and psychological methods, they broke my will, drove me to madness and forced me to do whatever they wanted,” Akbari said in the audio. “By the force of gun and death threats they made me confess to false and corrupt claims.”

Iran has not commented on the torture claims. However, the United Nations human rights chief has warned Iran against the “weaponization” of the death penalty as a means to put down the protests.

On Friday, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel also criticized Akbari’s then-pending execution.

“The charges against Ali Reza Akbari and his sentencing to execution were politically motivated. His execution would be unconscionable,” he said. “We are greatly disturbed by the reports that Mr. Akbari was drugged, tortured while in custody, interrogated for thousands of hours, and forced to make false confessions.”

He added: “More broadly, Iran’s practices of arbitrary and unjust detentions, forced confessions and politically motivated executions are completely unacceptable and must end.”

Akbari had previously led the implementation of a 1988 cease-fire between Iran and Iraq following their devastating eight-year war, working closely with U.N. observers. He served as a deputy defense minister under Shamkhani during reformist President Mohammad Khatami’s administration, likely further making his credentials suspicious to hard-liners within Iran’s theocracy.

Today, Shamkhani is the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, the country’s top security body which Ayatollah Ali Khamenei oversees. Akbari’s audio message aired by the BBC Persian included him saying he was accused of obtaining top-secret information from Shamkhani “in exchange for a bottle of perfume and a shirt.” However, it appears Shamkhani remains in his role.

The anti-government protests now shaking Iran are one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.

At least 520 protesters have been killed and 19,400 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been monitoring the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided official figures on deaths or arrests.

Iran has executed four people after convicting them of charges linked to the protests in similarly criticized trials, including attacks on security forces.

With Post Wires