British authorities decided Thursday to grant a temporary reprieve to an Iranian gay teenager who faces execution for his sexual orientation if he is returned to his home country.

“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 U.K. from the Netherlands,” Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced Thursday.

Mehdi Kazemi, 19, came to Britain in 2005 to study English. He subsequently found out that his boyfriend in Iran had been arrested, accused of sodomy and hanged. But before being executed, he was tortured to tell the names of his partners.

Being afraid to return to Iran, Kazemi applied for asylum in the UK in 2006, but his asylum application had been refused. Then, Kazemi fled to the Netherlands, where he submitted a second asylum application, which had been also refused. The Dutch authorities rejected Kazemi’s application on the grounds that, under the Dublin Regulation, his case should be solved by the country where he had submitted the first asylum application, namely Britain.

He is expected to return to Britain within days. His Dutch lawyer, Borg Palm, said that the temporary reprieve is good news, but on the long run it will affect Kazemi’s future. Palm added that his client will benefit from all rights only if he is granted asylum, Times Online reports.

“He is very much afraid of being allowed to stay in Britain but without being granted official permission. That would then put him in a no man’s land. He would be very unhappy in the long term.”

In a letter to Jacqui Smith, 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.”

The British government has been requested to reduce the number of refugees and asylum seekers it admits, the Washington Post informs. However, eighty members of Britain’s upper house of Parliament signed a letter addressed to Jacqui Smith, asking the government to “show compassion and allow Mr. Kazemi to have a safe haven in the United Kingdom.”