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Iran accuses jailed Swedish EU diplomat of conspiring with Israel

Iranian authorities have accused a Swedish EU diplomat, held in a Tehran prison for more than 600 days, of conspiring with Iran's arch-enemy Israel, the judiciary said Sunday.

Published: 10 December 2023 17:20 CET
Swedish EU diplomat Johan Floderus (C) attends a court session in Tehran
Swedish EU diplomat Johan Floderus (C) attends a court session in Tehran on December 10, 2023. (Photo by Amir Abbas GHASEMI / MIZAN NEWS AGENCY / AFP)

“Johan Floderus is accused of extensive measures against the security of the country, extensive intelligence cooperation with the Zionist regime and corruption on earth,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online news agency said.

Corruption on earth is one of Iran’s most serious offences and carries a maximum penalty of death.

Floderus, 33, was arrested on April 17, 2022, at Tehran airport as he was returning to Iran from a trip with friends.

The Swede, who works for the European Union diplomatic service, is being held in Tehran’s Evin prison.

His arrest came while an Iranian national, Hamid Noury, was being tried in Sweden over the mass executions of dissidents in Tehran in 1988 — ultimately receiving a life sentence in July 2022.

The Court of Appeals in Sweden is expected to announce a verdict in the case on December 19.

Mizan published photos of a handcuffed Floderus, who is being held in Tehran’s Evin Prison, appearing before judges in a pale blue prison uniform as the charges were read.

The prosecution claimed Floderus had gathered information on Iran’s “nuclear and enrichment programmes”, carried out “subversive projects” for the benefit of Israel and established a network of “agents of the Swedish intelligence service”.

It further claimed he was involved in “intelligence cooperation and communication with the European Union” and exiled opposition group, the People’s Mujahedin (MEK), according to Mizan.

The next date of the trial was not yet known.

EU’s top foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called Sunday for his immediate release, saying “there are absolutely no grounds for keeping Johan Floderus in detention.”

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom added: “There is no basis whatsoever for keeping Johan Floderus in detention, let alone bringing him to trial.”

READ ALSO: Iran demands Sweden act against Quran burnings and free prisoner

Other prisoners

Tehran-Stockholm ties soured after the execution in May of Iranian-Swedish dissident Habib Chaab, convicted of “corruption on earth” after being vanished during a visit to Turkey in 2020.

Academic Ahmadreza Djalali, another Iranian-Swede, was arrested in Iran in 2016 and sentenced to death on espionage charges. He remains under threat of execution.

Several other Europeans are detained in Iran, including four French citizens.

One of them, Louis Arnaud, was sentenced in November to five years in prison for propaganda and endangering the security of the Iranian state.

Iran’s relations with the EU improved after a nuclear deal in 2015 that lifted sanctions and looked set to boost trade.

But they have worsened considerably since the US effectively scrapped the deal in 2018.

The EU has imposed new sanctions on Iran after accusing it of providing Russia with drones for use in the Ukraine war, which Tehran denies.

It also sanctioned Iran over its response to nationwide protests last year triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian-Kurdish woman arrested in September 2022 for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.

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INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won’t spark a government crisis

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 18 May 2024 09:22 CEST
Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won't spark a government crisis

Hej,

News that the Sweden Democrats are operating a far-right troll factory – which among other things the party uses to smear political opponents as well as its supposed allies – has caused probably the biggest rift yet between them and the three other parties that make up Sweden’s ruling coalition.

The leaders of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals all strongly criticised the Sweden Democrats’ blatant violation of the so-called “respect clause” in their Tidö collaboration agreement – the clause that states that the four parties should speak respectfully of each other in the media.

But after crisis talks held on Thursday, the conflict appears to be dying down.

The Sweden Democrats hit out strongly at the TV4 Kalla Fakta documentary where the troll factory was revealed, calling it a smear campaign and disinformation, but simultaneously went as far as to confirm that they do run anonymous social media accounts for which they refused to apologise.

They did say sorry to the Tidö parties for including them in the smear campaigns, and promised to remove some of the posts that had offended the other three parties, plus reassign a couple of members of staff to other duties until they’ve been given training on the Tidö “respect clause”.

But that doesn’t remove the fact that they vowed to continue the anonymous social media accounts whose existence they had prior to the documentary consistently denied, or the fact that some of the social media posts shared not only vague anti-immigration content, but white power propaganda.

The Liberals took the row the furthest, with Liberal leader Johan Pehrson describing people in his party as skitförbannade – pissed off as hell. He said ahead of the crisis meeting that they would demand that the Sweden Democrats cease all anonymous posting, which the latter rejected.

The party had two choices: walk out of the government collaboration and possibly spark a snap election, or walk back its strong words ahead of the meeting and wait for it to blow over.

They chose a kind of middle way, and called for an inquiry to be launched into banning political parties from operating anonymous social media accounts. The Social Democrats immediately accused the Liberals of trying to “bury the issue in an inquiry” – a classic Swedish political method of indecisive conflict avoidance which the Social Democrats themselves are well familiar with.

The Christian Democrats and Moderates both said that the Sweden Democrats had accepted their criticism and welcomed the party’s reshuffling of staff within its communications department, adding that it still had to prove its commitment to the Tidö agreement going forward.

So why isn’t this causing a bigger government crisis?

We asked Evelyn Jones, a politics reporter for the Dagens Nyheter daily, to come on the Sweden in Focus podcast to explain it to us:

“The Sweden Democrats are the biggest party in this coalition, even though they’re not part of the government. So the government really needs them. It’s hard for them to just stop cooperating with the Sweden Democrats,” she said.

“The cooperation between the government parties and the Sweden Democrats has been going pretty smoothly since the last election – more smoothly than a lot of people thought. This is probably the biggest crisis so far, but how big it is, is hard to say.”

You can listen to the full interview with her and the rest of the Sweden in Focus podcast here. 

In other news

If you are a descendant of a Sweden-born person and would like to find out more about them, there are ways to do that. I wrote this week about how to research your Swedish ancestry.

That guide was prompted by my interview with the chair of a community history group in a small parish in north-central Sweden, which has tried to get to the bottom of rumours that US mega star Taylor Swift’s ancestors hail from their village. I had so much fun writing this article.

The EU elections will be held on June 9th, but advance voting begins next week in Sweden. And poll cards are already being sent out, so if you’re eligible to vote you should receive yours soon.

Sweden’s consumer price index fell to 3.9 percent in April, below 4.0 percent for the first time in two years, reinforcing predictions that the central bank will keep lowering interest rates.

Sweden’s four-party government bloc has broken with the other parties in a parliamentary committee on public service broadcasting, adding what the opposition complains are “radically changed” proposals. How shocking are they?

Many people move to Sweden because of their partner’s career. Perhaps you’re one of these so-called “trailing spouses”. I’ve been asking readers in this situation how they’re settling in, and will have an article for you next week. There’s still time to answer our survey to share your experience.

Thanks for reading.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.

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