"Through the efforts of Iranian security forces, an MI6 spy has been arrested," the head of the Kerman revolutionary court, Dadkhoda Salari, said on Saturday.

"He has met British intelligence officers in person 11 times, both inside the country and abroad, and provided them with intelligence," Salari added.

The spy has reportedly pleaded guilty to spying charges and is in the process of facing a trial.

Salari, however, offered no details on the suspect's nationality or identity.

In 1953, Britain’s M16 intelligence service and the American CIA spy agency organized a coup to oust Iran's popular prime minister at the time, Mohammad Mosaddeq, reinstalling and supporting the brutal regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi until its collapse in 1979.

The CIA has published a document for the first time after six decades confirming Washington’s role in the joint British-American military coup against the Mosaddeq administration. 

RA/MB