Britain is to plead for the life of an Iranian businessman who boasted that he ran a multibillion-dollar nuclear sanctions busting operation from a Surrey mansion.
Mehdi Shams, an Iranian businessman who was sentenced to death in Iran last month, holds a British passport. UK officials are seeking consular access to him in Tehran.
Mr Shams had well-documented associations with a number of companies and individuals who had faced international sanctions for their links to oil smuggling and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
His self-confessed sanctions busting was run from a £2 million mansion in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.
Mr Shams was granted citizenship in 2011 under an investor’s programme five years after coming to the UK. The case raises questions over the scrutiny imposed by the authorities