Iran regime denounced over hanging of Iranian-British ex-defense official

Update Iran regime denounced over hanging of Iranian-British ex-defense official
Alireza Akbari had said he was tortured in detention over months to confess to crimes he had not committed. (File/AFP)
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Updated 15 January 2023

Iran regime denounced over hanging of Iranian-British ex-defense official

Iran regime denounced over hanging of Iranian-British ex-defense official
  • Alireza Akbari was hanged after being convicted of spying for the UK
  • Britain temporarily pulls out envoy from Tehran and sanctioned Iran's prosecutor-general

JEDDAH: Western powers severely condemned the Iranian regime on Saturday after it executed a high-profile British-Iranian dual national, despite international warnings not to carry out the death sentence.

Alireza Akbari, 61, was hanged after being convicted of “corruption on earth and harming the country’s internal and external security by passing on intelligence.” He was sentenced to death for spying for the UK, drawing strong criticism from Western governments and international rights groups.

The regime’s Mizan website claimed Akbari, who had been arrested more than two years ago, had been a spy for Britain’s MI6 secret intelligence agency and had received around $2 million for his services.

The hanging of Ali Reza Akbari, a close ally of top security official Ali Shamkhani, suggests an ongoing power struggle within Iran’s theocracy as it tries to contain the demonstrations over the September death of Mahsa Amini. 

It also harkened back to the mass purges of the military that immediately followed Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Akbari’s hanging drew immediate anger from London, which along with the US and others has sanctioned Iran over the protests and its supplying Russia with the bomb-carrying drones now targeting Ukraine.

“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 said.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly summoned Iran’s chargé d’affaires in the United Kingdom and temporarily withdrew Britain’s ambassador from Tehran as Britain also sanctioned the Islamic Republic’s prosecutor-general.

“Our response to Iran is not limited to today,” he warned.

Iran similarly summoned the British ambassador after the execution.

France’s Foreign Ministry condemned the execution “in the strongest terms” and said it cannot go “un- answered."

French President Emmanuel Macron also decried what he called “a heinous and barbaric act.” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the execution “a further inhuman act by the Iranian regime.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned Akbari’s execution.

“We mourn with his loved ones and will continue to hold Iran accountable for its sham trials and politicized executions,” Blinken said.

Robert Malley, the US special envoy for Iran, said he was “horrified” by Akbari’s execution.

“The Islamic Republic’s unjust detentions, forced confessions, sham trials and politically motivated executions must end,” he wrote online.

News of the hanging came hours after the US had joined its ally Britain in calling for Iran not to go ahead with the execution.

US diplomat Vedant Patel said that Washington was greatly concerned by reports Akbari had been “drugged, tortured while in cus- tody, interrogated for thousands of hours and forced to make false confessions.”

Iran’s Mizan news agency, associated with the country’s judiciary, announced Akbari’s hanging without saying when it happened. However, there were rumors he had been executed days earlier.

Iran has alleged, without providing evidence, that Akbari served as 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.

However, Iran long has accused those who travel abroad or have Western ties of spying, often using them as bargaining chips in negotiations.

3,500 hours of torture

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.”

“With more than 3,500 hours of torture, psychedelic drugs, and physiological and psychological pressure methods, they took away my will. They drove me to the brink of madness... and forced me to make false confessions by force of arms and death threats,” he said.

An Iranian state TV report broadcast on Saturday said the intelligence ministry had him under surveillance and arrested him in 1998. He was arrested on espionage charges again in 2008 before being freed on bail and leaving the country, it said.
Reuters could not independently verify the details.

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.

Top executioner

Iran is one of the world’s top executioners. However, it wasn’t immediately clear when the last time a former or current high-ranking defense official had been executed. In 1984, Iran executed its navy chief Adm. Baharam Afzali along with nine other military people on a charge of spying for the Soviet Union.

Iran’s government for months has been trying to allege — without offering evidence — that foreign countries have fomented the unrest gripping the Islamic Republic since the death of 22-year-old Amini in September after her detention by the morality police. Protesters say they are angry over the collapse of the economy, heavy-handed policing and the entrenched power of the country’s Islamic clergy.

For several years, Iran has been locked in a shadow war with the United States and Israel, marked by covert attacks on its disputed nuclear program. The killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist in 2020, which Iran blamed on Israel, indicated foreign intelligence services had made major inroads. Iran mentioned that scientist in discussing Akbari’s case, though it’s unclear what current information, if any, he would have had on him.

Akbari had previously led the implementation of a 1988 cease-fire between Iran and Iraq following their devastating eight-year war, working closely with UN 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 Supreme Leader 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 522 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 AP & Reuters)

 


UAE president appoints Hazza bin Zayed, Tahnoun bin Zayed as deputy rulers of Abu Dhabi

UAE president appoints Hazza bin Zayed, Tahnoun bin Zayed as deputy rulers of Abu Dhabi
Updated 19 sec ago

UAE president appoints Hazza bin Zayed, Tahnoun bin Zayed as deputy rulers of Abu Dhabi

UAE president appoints Hazza bin Zayed, Tahnoun bin Zayed as deputy rulers of Abu Dhabi

DUBAI: The UAE’s President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed appointed Hazza bin Zayed and Tahnoun bin Zayed as deputy rulers of Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.

Developing


Israel should be held accountable for Al-Aqsa incursions: Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs

Israel should be held accountable for Al-Aqsa incursions: Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs
Updated 29 March 2023

Israel should be held accountable for Al-Aqsa incursions: Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs

Israel should be held accountable for Al-Aqsa incursions: Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs
  • Israeli policy reveals ‘true face of its extreme right-wing government,’ says RCJA secretary-general
  • Committee calls for international intervention to protect Palestinian people, and their rights to worship, self-determination

AMMAN: Israel should be held accountable for its “criminal incursions” into Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs Secretary-General Abdullah Kanaan.
In an interview with the Jordan News Agency on Wednesday, Kanaan said that daily incursions into the mosque are part of Israel’s growing attacks in Jerusalem and occupied Palestine.
Israeli policy reveals the “true face of its extreme right-wing government,” he said, adding that Tel Aviv’s leadership, programs and alliances are aimed at dividing Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Kanaan called for urgent international intervention to protect Palestinian people, and their rights to worship and self-determination.
“If Israel wants peace, it must urgently stop all its violations, abide by all international resolutions related to Palestine, and avoid tampering with Jerusalem’s existing historical situation,” he said.
The Jordan-run Islamic Endowments Department in Jerusalem is the only body with exclusive authority to manage Al-Aqsa Mosque affairs, Kanaan said.
Jordan will remain the historical custodian over Jerusalem’s Islamic and Christian sanctities, and will maintain its firm support and defense for Palestine and Jerusalem, he added.


Israel offers hope of airport link to 2m Gaza residents

Israel offers hope of airport link to 2m Gaza residents
Updated 57 min 11 sec ago

Israel offers hope of airport link to 2m Gaza residents

Israel offers hope of airport link to 2m Gaza residents
  • Israeli sources told Arab News that the US pressured Israel during the last Sharm El-Sheikh summit on March 19 to permit Palestinians to use the airport
  • If agreed, it will be a significant boon for Gazans who currently have to cross the Rafah land border and drive four hours through the Sinai desert to Cairo airport

RAMALLAH: Israel is considering allowing 2 million residents of the Gaza Strip to use Ramon Airport in the Negev desert, which is due to be officially opened to Palestinians from the West Bank from Saturday.

Israeli sources told Arab News that the US pressured Israel during the last Sharm El-Sheikh summit on March 19 to permit Palestinians to use the airport, located near the Red Sea resort city of Eilat.

Twice-weekly flights from the airport on Mondays and Thursdays will operate to destinations in Turkiye and will be limited to West Bank families. Men above 40 who hold a Palestinian passport will be allowed to pass through the airport.

If agreed, it will be a significant boon for Gazans who currently have to cross the Rafah land border and drive four hours through the Sinai desert to Cairo airport, their only connection with the outside world.

An official request has been submitted to Shin Bet to enable Gazans to pass through Ramon, and a senior Israeli source who asked not to be named told Arab News that the security agency is almost certain to agree.

Israel bombed and destroyed Gaza International Airport in December 2001.

A Palestinian politician from Gaza, who declined to be named, told Arab News that residents “need any solution” to the travel problem.

“According to the Oslo agreement, Palestinians should be able to travel through any Israeli airport and crossing they wish,” he said.

Jamal Zaqout, a political analyst from Gaza, told Arab News that “the time has come to lift the blockade completely on the Gaza Strip, and to establish a single authority that defends the interests of its residents in their movement through crossings and airports, their livelihood, and the rest of their lives.”

Israel opened Ramon Airport to Palestinian travelers from the West Bank in August last year, but backtracked following pressure from Jordan shortly before the Israeli elections three months later.

Officials described the two flights taking West Bank Palestinians to Istanbul and Antalya as “historic, unprecedented and a dream come true.”

Jordan opposed Ramon’s operation because it feared Palestinians from the West Bank would stop using Queen Alia International Airport, near Amman, resulting in a substantial financial loss.

According to Palestinian sources, Turkiye’s Pegasus Airlines suspended flights from Ramon after being told by Jordanian authorities that its fleet would not be welcome in Jordan if it continued to operate flights from the airport.

Other airlines are believed to have been invited to fill the vacuum left by Pegasus’ departure.

At the last Sharm El-Sheikh summit, the US called for travel facilities, including Ramon Airport and the Allenby bridge crossing spanning the Jordan River, to be made available to Palestinians from April.

Jordanian authorities collect up to $14 million annually from Palestinians entering the country and stand to lose a substantial portion of that money if large numbers begin to use Ramon Airport.

Jordan earlier said the airport’s establishment violated its airspace and international law. In 2019, Jordan submitted an official complaint to the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Israel opened the airport, which is 340 km from Jerusalem and the second largest in the country after Ben Gurion, in 2019 at a cost of $500 million.

With no airport in the West Bank, Queen Alia airport in Jordan remains the main gateway to the world for Palestinians, including President Mahmoud Abbas.

However, the Palestinian Authority has rejected the idea of ​​Palestinians traveling through Ramon Airport, saying it is a sovereign matter and that no consultations have taken place.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Israel allowed dozens of residents from the Gaza Strip to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem during Ramadan — a first since 2016 when the program was suspended.

Worshippers traveled by bus via the Erez crossing to Jerusalem and returned to Gaza later in the day. 


Hundreds flee fighting in Yemen’s Marib province

Hundreds flee fighting in Yemen’s Marib province
Updated 29 March 2023

Hundreds flee fighting in Yemen’s Marib province

Hundreds flee fighting in Yemen’s Marib province
  • Fighting has raged between Yemeni forces and the Houthis over the last 10 days in the Harib district, south of Marib, and Merkhah Al-Ulya area, in the southern province of Shabwa
  • The government’s Shabwa Defense Forces said on Tuesday that they had repulsed a Houthi assault in Merkhah Al-Ulya and shot down a militia drone

AL-MUKALLA: Hundreds of Yemenis have been forced from their homes in the central province of Marib as the Houthis continued to attack government troops, according to the UN International Organization for Migration.

Fighting has raged between Yemeni forces and the Houthis over the last 10 days in the Harib district, south of Marib, and Merkhah Al-Ulya area, in the southern province of Shabwa, leaving scores of fighters dead or injured.

Between March 19 and 25, the IOM reported that 235 families (1,410 people) had been displaced in Marib, Hodeidah, and Taiz, while 2,030 families (12,180 people) had been relocated to different Yemeni provinces since January.

A UN-brokered truce that came into force in April last year resulted in a major decrease in hostilities in battlefields around the country, particularly in Marib, as well as a significant fall in internal displacements and civilian deaths.

But recent Houthi strikes against government troops in Harib, and for the first time in a year attacks on loyalists, in Merkhah Al-Ulya, have shattered hopes of a peace pact to end the conflict.

The government’s Shabwa Defense Forces said on Tuesday that they had repulsed a Houthi assault in Merkhah Al-Ulya and shot down a militia drone.

Meanwhile, Yemeni government officials and the Houthis have said that they would begin exchanging hundreds of captives on April 11 in a three-day operation that would be carried out by the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Both sides agreed during the last round of prisoner-swap talks, that ended on March 20 in Switzerland, to exchange 887 detainees during the holy month of Ramadan.

Under the deal, the Yemeni government would hand over 706 Houthi prisoners for 181 government ones, including a former defense minister and four journalists condemned to death by the Houthis, and 19 coalition prisoners.

Majed Fadhail, deputy minister of human rights and a member of the government’s delegation, told Arab News that on the first day, an ICRC aircraft would transport Yemeni government prisoners, including Defense Minister Mahmoud Al-Subaihi and the former president’s brother Nasser Mansour Hadi, from the Houthi-held Sanaa airport to Aden, before returning to Sanaa with Houthi prisoners.

On the second day, a plane would take captives of the Arab coalition from Sanaa to Saudi Arabia.

And on the final day, an aircraft would transport further government captives, including the four journalists, to Marib city before returning to Sanaa with Houthi inmates.

Abdulkader Al-Murtada, head of the Houthis’ prisoner exchange committee, said this week that they and the Yemeni government delegation had agreed to create committees that would visit prisons in Sanaa and Marib and that a fresh round of prisoner-swap talks would begin in May.

Al-Murtada added that the process would last three days, and that the ICRC would charter prisoners from Sanaa airport to airports in Aden, Riyadh, and Marib.

Separately, Yemeni officials and rights groups said the Houthis had increased their assault on inhabitants of the old city of Ibb who had participated in a rare anti-militia rally.

Activists on social media shared images of at least seven individuals recently kidnapped by the Houthis for attending the burial of a famous internet activist in Ibb and said that the Houthis were continuing to deploy military personnel and search properties in and around Ibb.

On Thursday, the burial of Hamdi Abdel-Razzaq, popularly known as Al-Mukahal, an influencer kidnapped by the Houthis in October for denouncing corruption, turned into a protest against Yemeni militia in Ibb.


Lebanon airport expansion sparks transparency concerns

Lebanon airport expansion sparks transparency concerns
Updated 29 March 2023

Lebanon airport expansion sparks transparency concerns

Lebanon airport expansion sparks transparency concerns
  • Public Works and Transportation Minister Ali Hamieh said the private sector would fund the $122 million project, which would "create around 2,500 jobs"
  • Civil society groups and some lawmakers have decried opacity in the tender process and a lack of involvement of the Public Procurement Authority

BEIRUT: Civil society organizations and lawmakers in crisis-hit Lebanon have raised concerns over the awarding of a multi-million dollar contract to build and operate a second terminal at Beirut’s international airport.
Cash-strapped Lebanon announced last week that private company Lebanese Air Transport and Irish firm daa International would partner for the revamp.
Public Works and Transportation Minister Ali Hamieh said the private sector would fund the $122 million project, which would “create around 2,500 jobs.”
The firms would operate the terminal for a 25-year period, he added.
But civil society groups and some lawmakers have decried opacity in the tender process and a lack of involvement of the Public Procurement Authority.
“Marginalizing or disregarding” the role of the authority undermines the effectiveness of Lebanon’s 2021 public procurement law, 10 civil society groups said in a statement Tuesday.
Last week the groups, including Transparency International Lebanon, warned in a statement of “serious abuses” in the procurement law’s application which “open the door to corruption and nepotism.”
Jean Ellieh, head of the authority, confirmed to AFP on Wednesday that “the contract did not pass through” the regulatory body as it should have according to the 2021 law.
Some have also questioned how a caretaker government with limited powers could announce such a major infrastructure project, in a country where entrenched political barons are accused of systemic corruption.
Lawmaker Mark Daou argued on Twitter that awarding the contract went beyond the caretaker government’s prerogatives. Other MPs have also raised concerns.
The Court of Audit is expected to rule on the contract’s legality following the outcry.
In late 2019, Lebanon plunged into an economic crisis that the World Bank has dubbed one of the planet’s worst in modern times.
Amid persistent political deadlock, the country has been without a president for almost five months, while the government has operated in a caretaker capacity since May last year.
The economic meltdown has pushed most of the population into poverty while the political elite, widely blamed for the country’s financial collapse, has failed to take action.
A visiting International Monetary Fund delegation said last week that Lebanon was “at a very dangerous moment,” criticizing slow progress on reforms needed to unlock billions in emergency loans.
In a statement, the IMF noted that Lebanon’s 2021 procurement law “should be implemented promptly.”
The new airport terminal, set to cater to low-cost carriers and charter flights, is expected to be able to receive around 3.5 million passengers a year, according to public works minister Hamieh.
Work is expected to start next year, with the terminal set to become operational by March 2027, according to daa International.