UK freezes assets of five Iranians over alleged plot, wants EU allies to follow suit

Britain has frozen the assets of five men, including two key suspects in an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in the United States, matching sanctions taken by U.S. authorities.

The assets of the five – who include two people who have been formally charged by U.S. authorities over the case – were frozen under Britain’s Terrorist Asset-Freezing Act, it said in a statement.

Foreign Secretary William Hague told Reuters that Britain was discussing action with its European Union partners and expected other nations to follow suit with sanctions.

The five targeted included Mansoor Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen, who was arrested in September over the plot which Iran has dismissed as a fabricated “comedy show”.

Gholam Shakuri, a high-ranking Revolutionary Guard official who has been named by the U.S. authorities as a co-plotter, was also included. He is a fugitive and believed to be in Iran.

“The U.S. has designated under their sanctions legislation five individuals. As of today the UK will designate the same five individuals under the Terrorist Asset Freezing Act 2010,” Hague told Reuters.

“We are also discussing with our EU partners a wider action against these same five individuals,” added Hague, on his arrival in Mauritania as part of a trip to north Africa.

“It relates to alleged terrorist activity and the activities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds force.”

“It stops them using UK banks and its financial system,” Hague said. “We are the first country after the U.S. to take this action and we expect to be followed by others.”

The U.S. Treasury imposed similar restrictions on the five last week, describing the four based in Iran as members of the Quds force, a secretive unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps which the U.S. alleges supports “terrorist activities abroad.”

U.S. officials have said they believe it likely that the head of Quds knew of the alleged plot to kill Saudi ambassador Adel al-Jubeir.

Britain also blacklisted Qasem Soleimani, who it said was a commander in the IRGC. The other two were named as Iranian national Hamed Abdollahi and Abdul Reza Shahlai, who it said lived in Iran.

Soleimani is already listed by the European Union as being involved in providing equipment to help the Syrian regime suppress protests.

U.S. authorities said last week that Arbabsiar had paid a U.S. undercover agent posing as a Mexican drug cartel hitman to assassinate the ambassador.

They allege that around $100,000 was sent from a foreign bank outside Iran to the U.S. account of the hired hitman.

The affair has escalated tensions between the United States and Iran, relations poisoned by decades of mutual suspicion and more recently Western concerns over Iran’s nuclear program.