Man arrested in Cyprus over alleged spying on UK military base

Cypriot authorities arrested Rashad Sultanov, a 44-year-old dual British-Azerbaijani national from Islington, north London, on suspicion of spying on RAF Akrotiri. He was being held while extradition proceedings moved forward, and the allegation centered on hostile surveillance and the alleged transfer of information to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Counter Terrorism Policing said the case was the first overseas investigation under Britain’s National Security Act 2023. The suspected surveillance was said to have taken place between May 11 and June 22, 2025, placing the episode in a period when British and allied security agencies were already watching regional threats in the eastern Mediterranean with unusual care.

RAF Akrotiri sits inside the Akrotiri Sovereign Base Area, one of two UK sovereign base areas in Cyprus created under the 1960 Treaty of Establishment that formed the independent Republic of Cyprus. Akrotiri and Dhekelia together cover about 254 square kilometers, or roughly 98 square miles, and remain under British sovereignty. House of Commons Library material says the UK maintains sovereignty over the base areas and operates two military bases on the island.

That footprint makes Cyprus strategically larger than its geography suggests. The bases support regional operations, logistics, surveillance, and wider defense cooperation, giving London a forward position close to the Middle East. Any effort to film, map, or otherwise gather information about the bases can therefore raise immediate suspicion of foreign intelligence activity, especially when the target is RAF Akrotiri, a visibly active Royal Air Force installation.

The security sensitivity around the base sharpened further after a March 2026 attack in which an unmanned drone hit RAF Akrotiri and caused limited damage. Against that backdrop, allegations of hostile surveillance near the same site point to the pressure now surrounding Western military assets in the eastern Mediterranean, where drones, proxy networks, and intelligence collection have become part of the same threat picture.

Images of the base have shown it operating normally, including a March 24, 2026, file image that captured a truck leaving the compound. Even so, the arrest has drawn attention to what Cyprus means for Britain beyond diplomacy: a sovereign military foothold used for regional reach, now exposed to the same espionage pressures that shadow larger fronts in the Middle East.