“I have to go. I am a soldier. It is my duty.” Alireza Akbari was explaining to his family why he felt he had to answer a call by his former boss, Ali Shamkhani to return to Tehran in 2019 to help advise on how the country should respond to the fateful decision of Donald Trump to withdraw America from the Iran nuclear deal.
Some family members advised it might not be wise to do so since by 2019 the climate in the intelligence services was turning against Akbari’s belief in the value of the nuclear deal and the lifting of western economic sanctions.
Akbari, by now naturalised in the UK and a successful businessman, had been to a previous meeting a year earlier in the summer of 2018 in Karaj where he had been encouraged by the government to lead some blue-sky thinking on the future of the nuclear deal, and relations with the west.
About 10 people attended with expertise from different fields. As a former deputy in the defence ministry and soldier in the Iran-Iraq war, his ability to analyse the west and synthesise thinking was highly prized. He thought he had the full protection of Shamkhani in leading these discussions.
Many at the first meeting had said Iran could not survive western sanctions indefinitely, an analysis that did not find favour with some in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Certainly, Akbari’s reception on his second visit in 2019 was wholly different, with an intelligence office immediately assigned to him, and very rapidly he realised he had become the victim of a setup. The long path of interrogation in hotel rooms and security stations began. He appealed to Shamkhani to find out what was happening, and to call off the inquisition.
Whether the Iranian intelligence services and Shamkhani genuinely believed he was a spy is up for debate. The conspiratorial mindset of some Iranian regime members towards the UK is deeply ingrained, based on 60 years of experience, and they were likely to be highly suspicious of any former regime member taking up exile with his family in a state deemed to be so hostile to the Islamic Revolution.
The family claim he secured a visa legitimately and that innocent meetings with British estate agents and university admissions advisers became treacherous meetings with MI6 desk officers in the febrile imagination of the Iranian security services. The court papers detail how much he received from MI6, but his family say the Iranians have misconstrued income from his business as income from the British security services.
The papers provide no tangible evidence about the actual bank accounts or the source of income so the judge seems to have taken the word of the security services without demanding the most basic evidence.
The initial charge against him was conspiring with a foreign power, an offence that carried a maximum of 10 years in jail. But in 2021 the allegations became more serious, and Judge Abolqasem Salavati accepted the charge of corruption on Earth, a charge that carried the death penalty.
By June of last year the family was so desperate that they thought it might be necessary to go public, but eventually decided the internal route of appealing against the verdicts was the safest. One of Akbari’s daughters decided to return to Tehran to work and her safety was a consideration.
But the supreme national security council was given a chance to exonerate Akbari when it was asked a set of questions. The first was whether he had access to secret documents and had provided them to a foreign power, and if so would this be a threat to national security? It was also asked if the British government should be considered a “hostile government”?
According to his family the council in response only emphasised that he had not cooperated with it since 2006, a neutral answer that was not enough to save him.
Family members believe the intelligence services were under severe pressure due to their failure to protect Iranian nuclear scientists, and Akbari became useful to them in explaining that failure.
Others see it as a signal from hardliners that there will be no compromise in the talks on the future of the nuclear deal, or in the treatment of the protesters.
Akbari’s grim fate is a clear sign to anyone advocating for the deal, or a continued relationship with the west, they will be regarded by some as walking on treacherous ground.
