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SWEDEN AND IRAN

Iran says Swede arrested for alleged espionage

Iran said on Saturday it had arrested a Swedish national on allegations of espionage, without providing details on the suspect's identity nor the date of their detention.

Iran says Swede arrested for alleged espionage
The flag of Iran waves in front of the the International Center building in Vienna, Austria. File photo: AP Photo/Michael Gruber/TT

The announcement comes amid diplomatic tensions between Tehran and Stockholm, after a Swedish court sentenced a former Iranian prison official to life for war crimes during mass executions in the Islamic republic in 1988.

Iran’s intelligence ministry said it had “identified and arrested a national of the Kingdom of Sweden suspected of espionage”.

In early May, the Swedish foreign ministry said a Swede in his thirties had been arrested in Iran.

It was not immediately clear if the announcement on Saturday refers to that man or another Swede.

“In all the previous trips, the suspect… communicated with a number of European and non-European suspects who were under surveillance in Iran,” the statement read.

“The suspect in question re-entered the country a few months ago after the arrest of another European spy” to collect information, it alleged, adding the suspect had been taken into custody while leaving Iran.

The intelligence ministry said the suspect had visited Israel, the Islamic republic’s arch-enemy, before going to Iran.

It also alleged Sweden had “supported several proxy spies” for Israel, including Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian academic who has been sentenced to death in the Islamic republic.

Djalali’s sentence was issued in 2017 after he was convicted of passing information about two Iranian nuclear scientists to Israel’s Mossad spy agency that led to their assassinations.

He was granted Swedish citizenship the following year.

His case was followed by the trial in Stockholm of Hamid Noury, a former official in Iran’s judiciary accused of war crimes over the killing of prisoners in Iran during the 1980s.

Noury received a life sentence from a Swedish court on July 14th. Iran dismissed the verdict as “political” and has called for his release.

Relations between to the two countries have been strained over the case, with Tehran recalling its ambassador to Sweden for consultations a week later.

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SWEDEN AND IRAN

Two Swedes, including EU diplomat, freed in Iran prisoner swap: PM

A Swedish EU diplomat and another Swede held in Iran have been released in exchange for an Iranian serving a life sentence in Sweden, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced on Saturday.

Two Swedes, including EU diplomat, freed in Iran prisoner swap: PM

Johan Floderus, who has been held in Iran since April 2022 and faced the death penalty on spying charges, and Saeed Azizi, who was arrested in November 2023, were on a flight to Sweden “and will finally be reunited with their relatives”, Kristersson said in a statement.

The announcement coincided with a statement from Iran that Hamid Noury, a former Iranian prison official jailed for life in Sweden, had been freed and would return to the Islamic republic soon.

READ ALSO: Iranian journalist in hiding in Sweden after Iran puts his name on ‘death list’

Kristersson said Iran had made Floderus and Azizi “pawns in a cynical negotiation game, with the aim of getting Iranian citizen Hamid Noury released from prison in Sweden”.

Noury, a 62-year-old Iranian former prison official, is serving a life sentence in Sweden for his role in mass executions in Iran in 1988.

“As Prime Minister, I have a special responsibility for the safety of Swedish citizens. The government has therefore worked intensively on the issue, together with the Swedish security service, which has negotiated with Iran,” he said.

“It has been clear all along that the operation would require some difficult decisions. Now we have made those decisions.”

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