Iran hangs former defence ministry official over spy claim
Dubai (AP/PTI): Iran said on Saturday that it had executed a dual Iranian-British national who had once worked for its Defence Ministry, despite an international outcry over his death sentence and those of others held amid nationwide protests.
Iran's Mizan news agency, associated with the country's judiciary, announced Ali Reza Akbari's hanging.
It did not say when it happened. However, there were rumors he had been executed days ago.
Iran had accused Akbari, without offering evidence, of being a spy for Britain's MI-6 intelligence agency. It aired a highly edited video of Akbari discussing the allegations resembling others that activists have described as coerced confessions.
On Friday, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel criticized Akbari's pending execution.
"The charges against Alireza Akbari and his sentencing to execution were politically motivated. His execution would be unconscionable," she said, "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."
She added: "More broadly, Iran's practices of arbitrary and unjust detentions, forced confessions, and politically motivated executions are completely unacceptable and must end."
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PM Modi, myself don't have 'wife issue': Rahul Gandhi
New Delhi (PTI): In a friendly banter, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and he didn’t have "the wife issue", as the Congress MP emphasised that everyone has learnt from women in their lives.
Participating in a debate in the Lok Sabha on the three bills introduced for amendments to the women's quota law and setting up a delimitation commission, Gandhi said women are a driving force in the national imagination and national perspective.
"All of us in this room have been influenced, taught, and have learnt a lot from women in our lives – from mothers, sisters, wives," Gandhi said.
"Of course, the prime minister and myself don't have the wife issue, so we don't get that input, but we have our mothers and sisters," he said while referring to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju's light-hearted remark that he got a scolding at home as he did not pen a poem for his wife like Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal did.
Gandhi also lauded his sister and Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi's speech in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
"Yesterday, I was watching my sister achieve in five minutes what I have not been able to do in 20 years of my political career – make Amit Shah Ji smile," Gandhi said to peals of laughter.
