Iranian state media reported that regime officials have arrested two British citizens accused of security-related crimes.
The regime’s official news agency, IRNA, announced on the evening of Wednesday, February 12, that the two British citizens are being held in a prison in Kerman Province, without disclosing their identities, the exact charges against them, or the circumstances of their arrest.
London has not yet commented on the matter, but IRNA stated that Hugo Shorter, the British Ambassador to Iran, met with these “two British nationals accused of security offenses” at the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in Kerman.
IRNA also published images of the meeting, with the faces of the man and woman—presumably the two detained British citizens—blurred and unidentifiable.
The report states that Mehdi Bakhshi, the Prosecutor of Kerman, and Rahman Jalali, the Deputy Governor for Security and Law Enforcement Affairs of Kerman, were also present at the meeting.
Several other European nationals are also currently imprisoned in Iran. In recent years, the Iranian regime has repeatedly exchanged these European detainees for prisoners it sought to secure from Western countries.
One of the most recent suspected prisoner exchanges occurred last month when Iranian authorities released Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist. Four days later, Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi was released in Italy and returned to Iran.
Abedini Najafabadi, who had been accused by the United States of transferring sensitive drone components to the IRGC, was arrested at Milan Airport in Italy on December 16, 2024. However, Iran’s judiciary later claimed that his detention was due to a “misunderstanding.”
Two years ago, Iran’s regime also executed Alireza Akbari, a dual Iranian-British citizen, an act that provoked outrage from Western governments. The UK condemned his execution as a “barbaric” act.
Alireza Akbari was a former deputy defense minister of Iran. Iranian authorities accused him of “espionage” for British intelligence services and of being involved in the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a prominent figure in the Iranian regime’s nuclear program.
