The Iranian regime describes the release of Hamid Noury, who was sentenced to life in prison in the summer of 2022 for serious crimes against humanity and murder, as a major victory.
Officially, no clear connections are made to the prisoner exchange with Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi, according to Rouzbeh Parsi, program director at the Middle East and North Africa program at the Foreign Policy Institute.
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– According to the Iranian state, he (Hamid Noury) has not committed any crime. From their perspective, this was justice because he didn’t deserve to be in prison,” says Rouzbeh Parsi.
Noury was greeted with flowers as he stepped off the plane in Tehran and made ambiguous statements to the media afterwards.
– God freed me, (…), Hamid Noury, known as Hamid Abbasi, he said, without further explanation.
Can be interpreted as recognition
Among political prisoners, Noury was known by the name Abbasi, but during the trial in Sweden, which began in 2021, Noury denied using the name. His defenders argued that it could not be proven that he was Abbasi.
– It is a recognition in the sense that he stands for who he is, and signals that in Iran he has nothing to be ashamed of. He simply stops pretending that he is not the person he was accused of being, says Parsi, noting:
– What he does not admit is that he committed any crimes.
“Symbolically important”
What the future looks like for Noury depends, according to Parsi, partly on what role he had before he was arrested in Sweden and to what extent Iran wants to capitalize on the case as a propaganda victory.
– I don’t think Tehran saved him because of who he is. They have saved him because it is symbolically important that no other states begin to judge Iranians for what the Iranian state considers legitimate actions.
Hamid Noury also directly addressed the opposition guerrilla group People’s Mujahedin – in the video, Rouzbeh Parsi goes through parts of the televised interview.