Alireza Akbari was executed by Tehran on Saturday (AP)
(Picture: AP)Lord Simon McDonald, the UK’s former top diplomat, has warned that it is not safe for British-Iranian dual nationals to be in Iran.
His comments come after Alireza Akbari, a British-Iranian dual national who had previously held a senior position in the Iranian government, was executed on Saturday morning.
He had been found guilty of spying for MI6, charges which are denied by his family.
Lord McDonald, former Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The situation of dual nationals detained by Iran is desperate.
“The execution of Alireza Akbari was sickening and wrong. He had been tortured.
“It is very difficult for the British Government to offer consular protection to dual nationals. Many cases show the Government does all that it can but right now it is not safe for British Iranian dual nationals to be in Iran.”
But the chairman of the Commons Defence Committee Tobias Ellwood has said the UK has not done enough to stand up to Iran.
Speaking to Times Radio on Monday, he said: "We've had Iran going through a very difficult period following the demonstrations that took place in that country, (with) many women coming out after Mahsa (Amini) was killed under police custody when she refused to wear the headscarf during the summer," he said.
"The population itself is rising up against its own regime, the regime is lashing back out and that's why you're seeing a number of executions taking place, not just the one involved with a dual national.
"So it's important to recognise where Iran is going to go, but very similar to Russia in a way, that we've not done enough to stand up to Iran, its proxy influence in Lebanon, in Syria, in Yemen, in Iraq and so forth.
"We've not challenged this whatsoever again, throughout 30 years, three decades of becoming, I'm afraid, too risk averse to stand up - to checking - the challenges to our international rules-based order."
Tehran has detained a number of dual and foreign nationals in recent years, including British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was held in 2016 and released last year.
The Islamic Republic has been rocked in recent months by anti-government protests seen as the biggest challenge to Tehran’s authority since the 1979 revolution.
Iran has executed at least four people after convicting them of charges linked to the protests following internationally-criticised trials.
