Iran has executed a British Iranian national. Ali Reza Akbari was a former Iranian deputy defense minister and had been charged with spying for Britain.

On Saturday, Iran’s Mizan news agency announced Akbari’s hanging death, but it was not immediately clear when the execution took place. He was arrested in 2019.

Britain and the U.S. had urged Iran not to carry out the death penalty.

Amnesty Iran posted on Twitter that Akbari’s hanging displays Iranian authorities’ “abhorrent assault on the right to life. The use of the death penalty is appalling under all circumstances.”

"This was a callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of their own people," British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak posted on Twitter. He said he was “appalled.”

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also posted on Twitter, "This barbaric act deserves condemnation in the strongest possible terms. This will not stand unchallenged."

“The charges against Ali Reza Akbari and his sentencing to execution were politically motivated. His execution would be unconscionable,” State Department Deputy Spokesman Vedant Patel said Friday before the execution. “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.”

Earlier this week, BBC Persia aired an audio message from Akbari. He said he had been interrogated and tortured “for more than 3,500 hours” and was forced into confessing to crimes that he did not commit.

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

Akbari’s trial was not open to the public.

Iran has handed down a number of death sentences recently, following the protests that have gripped the country after a young woman died in custody after her arrest for wearing her headscarf improperly. Iran has executed at least four people since the protests. (SJ/VOA)