A man from Liverpool has been charged with allegedly assisting Iran’s intelligence service.
Vahid Aberi, 39, was arrested on Wednesday by Counter Terrorism Police officers in the Birmingham area.
The man was taken to a West Midlands police station.
Officers carried out searches at addresses in the Birmingham and Liverpool areas.
Police said the investigation relates to Iran.
He was then charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service by the Crown Prosecution Service.
Commander Helen Flanagan, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, explained the force have not identified any direct threat to the public.
She said: “We have seen a significant and sustained increase in the tempo of our work in national security investigations in recent years.”
A man from Liverpool has been charged with allegedly assisting Iran’s intelligence service
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GETTY
The Commander added: “This case is yet another example of where we’ve intervened to disrupt suspected activity linked to foreign intelligence services.
“While we can’t comment in detail around the allegations now that a man has been charged, I do want to reassure the public that we have not identified any direct threat to them nor any threat towards a community or individual in connection with this investigation.”
Aberi was remanded in custody.
He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday, July 17.
Vahid Aberi was then charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service by the Crown Prosecution Service
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GETTYOn Monday, it was announced that Sir Keir Starmer had taken the decision to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation.
The IRGC was outlawed under the new National Security Act, pending Parliament’s approval, which will see members and supporters facing sentences of life imprisonment.
Alongside the IRGC, the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right (IMCR), another Iranian-linked group, will be banned after a series of attacks on British Jewish communities across the UK.
The volunteer corps of Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency, GRU, will also be outlawed under the same legislation due to “sabotage and other activity directed against the UK and Europe”.