Mehdi Kazemi, the gay Iranian teenager facing deportation from Britain and execution in his home country, has been handed a temporary reprieve.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, announced today that his case will be reconsidered after concerns that he could be hanged if removed to his homeland.

Ms Smith said: “Following representations made on behalf of Mehdi Kazemi, and in the light of new circumstances since the original decision was made, I have decided that Mr Kazemi’s case should be reconsidered on his return to the UK from the Netherlands.”

Mr Kazemi, 19, was this week refused asylum in the Netherlands. His Dutch lawyer, Borg Palm, said the court had ruled he could only claim asylum in the UK.

But his asylum application was rejected by Britain last year, and he was facing deportation from the UK to Iran, where his boyfriend was hanged two years ago for sodomy.

Since the Dutch ruling, the Home Office has been under increasing pressure to review the teenager's case, rather than risk sending him to his death.

The department’s own guidance concedes that Iran executes homosexuals but rejects the claim that there is a systematic repression of gay men and lesbians.

The Times uncovered Foreign and Commonwealth Office papers in November that showed that the British Government regularly challenges Iran about its gay hangings.

Mr Kazemi came to London to study English in 2005. He applied for asylum after discovering that his former boyfriend had been hanged in Iran after being charged with sodomy. Legal papers claim that his boyfriend was questioned about his sexual relations with other men and, under interrogation, named Mr Kazemi as his partner.

In a letter to Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, Mr Kazemi wrote: “I did not come to the UK to claim asylum. I came here to study and return to my country. But . . . my situation has changed. The Iranian authorities have found out that I am a homosexual and they are looking for me. I cannot stop my attraction towards men . . . I was born with the feeling and cannot change this fact . . . If I return to Iran I will be arrested and executed.”

According to human rights campaigners more than 4,000 gay men and lesbians have been executed in Iran since the revolution in 1979.

Ben Summerskill, Chief executive of gay rights group Stonewall, said today: “We are obviously delighted that the Home Secretary has listened to the representations that were made in this case.

“There are overwhelming reasons why people should not be deported to Iran in the current circumstances, and it is important that Britain is seen as a safe haven.”

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