Swedish citizen arrested for espionage in Iran

Swedish citizen arrested for espionage in Iran

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fullscreen File image showing central parts of Tehran. Photo: Vahid Salemi/AP/TT

A Swedish citizen has been arrested in Iran, suspected of espionage, the country’s intelligence ministry said in a statement.

According to the statement, the person has had contact with others in Iran and visited Israel, Iran’s arch-enemy, AP writes.

In May, it was announced that another Swedish man had been detained in Iran. According to information to TT, that arrest was connected to the trial in Stockholm against the Iranian accused of war crimes, Hamid Noury.

The now 61-year-old Hamid Noury ​​was recently sentenced to life imprisonment and deportation for grave crimes against international law and murder, in connection with the executions of political prisoners in Iran in the summer of 1988. The sentence caused Iran to recall its ambassador to Sweden in protest.

Since before, Swedish citizen Ahmedreza Djalali has been imprisoned in Iran, where he risks the death penalty, accused of espionage.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry has so far not confirmed the information.

Facts

The verdict against Hamid Noury

61-year-old Iranian citizen Hamid Noury ​​has been sentenced to life imprisonment and deportation for grave crimes against international law and murder, in connection with the executions of political prisoners in Iran in the summer of 1988.

Thousands of prisoners are estimated to have been killed because of their political sympathies. Hamid Noury ​​is linked to hundreds of them.

He was arrested at Arlanda in November 2019, and has been in custody since then. The trial, which began in August 2021, is one of Sweden’s largest of its kind. After 92 court days, where over 70 plaintiffs and witnesses from different parts of the world were heard, the Stockholm district court announced the verdict on July 14.

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Ahmadreza Djalali

Ahmadreza Djalali is a doctor and researcher in disaster medicine. Djalali, who has both Iranian and Swedish citizenship, has lived in Sweden with his wife and two children since 2009, with the exception of a couple of years in Italy. Djalali received her doctorate in disaster medicine at Karolinska Institutet in 2012.

Djalali was arrested by the intelligence services of Iran on April 25, 2016, while he was in the country to attend seminars. He had traveled to Iran on several previous occasions without any problems.

In October 2017, the public prosecutor in Tehran said, without mentioning Ahmadreza Djalali by name, that the “defendant” had had several meetings with the Mossad and provided the Israeli intelligence service with sensitive information about Iran’s military and nuclear facilities in exchange for money and a residence permit in Sweden . Djalali was sentenced to death.

Source: Amnesty Sweden

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