Iran uses Duke’s ‘kill count’ to justify execution of dual national

Tehran says UK cannot preach on human rights after ‘turning blind eye’ to Prince Harry’s ‘war crime’

IRAN has tried to justify the execution of Alireza Akbari, the British-iranian dual national accused of spying for MI6, by saying the UK cannot “preach” about human rights issues after Prince Harry admitted to killing 25 Taliban fighters.

As a row over the execution of Akbari escalates, the Iranian foreign ministry used the Duke of Sussex’s Afghanistan kill-count revelation to take a swipe at the UK.

Yesterday, the ministry’s official Twitter account posted: “The British regime, whose Royal family member sees the killing of 25 innocent people as removal of chess pieces and has no regrets over the issue, and those who turn a blind eye to this war crime, are in no position to preach [to] others on human rights.”

The Prince has already been criticised by senior military figures for revealing his kill count in Spare, his memoir released last Tuesday.

He has said he was not “boasting” and that the figure should be read in the wider context of the book. He also said discussing the issue helped him on his own “healing journey” and that his goal was to “reduce the number of suicides” in the military by sharing the detail.

In the book, the Duke writes that he is neither proud nor ashamed of the number and that in the heat of combat he thought of those he killed as “chess pieces” that were taken off the board.

Akbari, 61, a former deputy defence minister in Tehran, was described by the Iranian regime’s intelligence ministry as a “super spy” for Britain – charges he denied. He had emigrated to Britain and became a naturalised citizen before he was arrested in 2019 during a visit to Iran. His detention and death sentence were revealed last week.

Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, called the execution a “callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime” and James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, announced a series of measures in response, including sanctioning Iran’s prosecutor general.

Asked about Iran’s reference to the Duke’s book yesterday, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We will not be drawn into conflating what are two separate issues. I don’t comment on the Royal family more broadly.

“No one should be in any doubt that the execution of Alireza Akbari was a barbaric and politically motivated act with no legitimacy, and comparisons between that and servicemen and women carrying out legitimate actions would be entirely false.”