Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has announced that she will review the case of Mehdi Kazemi, 19, an Iranian gay man who says he faces execution if deported.

Kazemi had fled to the Netherlands seeking asylum when Britain first threatened deportation, but Dutch authorities ruled that he would need to return to Britain, where he had first applied for refugee status.

The British government's possible change in policy follows an international uproar and an appeal by members of the House of Lords and by the UK LGBT rights group Stonewall.

"We are moving in the right direction and I am a lot happier," his uncle, Saeed, a UK resident, told the paper. Mehdi came out to his uncle in 2006 while studying in Britain. Mehdi's male lover was executed for sodomy in Iran.