Five months after Tehran’s execution of Alireza Akbari on charges of espionage for Britain, the New York Times quoted Israeli and Iranian sources as saying that the former official was an unexpected spy because of his loyalty to the regime.
Akbari, the former deputy defense minister of Iran, played an instrumental role in revealing intelligence on the Fordo nuclear site.
The plant included Iran's secret activities before Tehran admitted the existence of an underground uranium enrichment site in 2009.
Akbari, 62, who holds British citizenship, was executed at dawn on January 14, three days after his arrest case was leaked to the media.
According to the New York Times, the execution of Akbari, who has close ties to the head of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, brought to light something hidden for 15 years: Akbari was the British mole.
In April 2008, a senior British intelligence official flew to Tel Aviv to deliver an explosive revelation to his Israeli counterparts: Britain had a mole in Iran with high-level access to the country's nuclear and defense secrets.
According to the newspaper, the spy provided valuable intelligence that would prove critical in eliminating any doubt in Western capitals that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons and in persuading the world to impose sweeping sanctions against Tehran.
Akbari, who lived a double life, began leaking nuclear secrets to British intelligence in 2004.
He was a senior military commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and a deputy defense minister who later moved to London and went into the private sector but never lost the trust of Iran's leaders.
He was known as a religious zealot and political hawk and continued to serve as an adviser to Shakhmani and other officials even after he retired from his posts in 2008.
The daily reported that Akbari did not face a problem until 2019 when he was arrested in Tehran where he was on a visit at the invitation of Shamkhani.
Iran discovered with the assistance of Russian intelligence officials that he had revealed the existence of a clandestine Iranian nuclear weapons program deep in the mountains near Tehran, according to two Iranian sources with links to IRGC.
The New York Times reported in September 2019 that the intelligence source on Fordo was a British spy.
Akbari's intelligence was one of the revelations the British intelligence official passed on to Israeli counterparts and other friendly agencies in 2008.
In April 2008, Britain received and shared intelligence about Fordo with Israel and Western agencies.
Iranian authorities did not specify the exact timing of Akbari's arrest between 2019 and 2020.
Two days after Akbari's execution, Iranian state media broadcast his televised confessions, confirming his role in relaying information about the identity and activities of over 100 officials, most significantly the chief nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated in November 2020.
In his confessions, Akbari said he was recruited by British intelligence, providing information on top officials and influential figures to foreign countries.
A few days before his execution, BBC Persian revealed an audio message from Akbari, speaking from inside the prison, saying he was tortured for more than ten months and that his confessions were coerced.
He said there is no evidence against him, noting that he left Iran legally and launched his economic activities in several European countries, but he was accused of "escaping" and owning "shell companies."
Iran said he disclosed the identity and activities of over 100 officials, namely Fakhrizadeh.
The New York Times quoted a senior Iranian diplomat and an adviser to the government as saying that Akbari argued that Iran should acquire a nuclear weapon.
On January 15, the day after Akbari's execution, the reformist Etemad newspaper published excerpts from Akbari's statements, including statements he made in August 2003 to the state-owned news agency ISNA about the need for Iran to obtain a "deterrent" nuclear weapon.
Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran agreed to halt uranium enrichment at Fordo, turning it instead into a center of nuclear energy, physic, and technology.
Last year, Iran announced a return to enriching uranium to 20 percent at the Fordo facility. Last November, it began enrichment at 60 percent.
Iran has been enriching to 60 percent at the Natanz facility since April 2021, close to the 90 percent needed for weapons-grade uranium.
Last February, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) criticized Iran for concealing fundamental modifications, like the work of centrifuges at the Fordo facility.
The IAEA did not say how the interconnection between the two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges had been changed except that "they were interconnected in a way that was substantially different from the mode of operation declared by Iran (to the IAEA)."
Later that same month, leaked reports from the Agency revealed that its inspectors had found uranium particles enriched to 83.7 percent purity, the highest level Iran has ever reached.
However, Tehran said it did not intend to enrich uranium to more than 60 percent and agreed with the IAEA to investigate the origin of 83.7 percent of uranium.
