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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran executed an Iranian-Swedish twin nationwide Saturday accused of masterminding a 2018 assault on a navy parade that killed at the very least 25 individuals, one in all a number of enemies of Tehran seized overseas lately amid tensions with the West.
Farajollah Cha’ab, often known as Habib Asyoud, had been a pacesetter of the Arab Wrestle Motion for the Liberation of Ahwaz, an Arab separatist motion that has carried out oil pipeline bombings and different assaults in Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province. That group had claimed the 2018 assault in its instant aftermath.
Cha’ab’s execution comes as a Swedish courtroom final 12 months sentenced an Iranian to life in jail over his half within the 1988 mass executions in Iran on the finish of its conflict with Iraq. Tehran, which has used prisoners as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West, reacted angrily to that sentence. In the meantime, tensions additionally stay excessive between Iran and the West over its quickly advancing nuclear program as effectively — and at the very least another prisoner with Western ties faces a attainable execution.
The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan information company confirmed Cha’ab’s execution by hanging in a prolonged assertion. It recognized him because the chief of the militant group and alleged with out offering proof that he had ties to Swedish, Israelis and U.S. intelligence providers. It accused his group of killing or wounding 450 individuals over time, together with a number of assaults on authorities workplaces and different websites.
It additionally included state tv interviews with Cha’ab, a characteristic of many Iranian trials that activists lengthy have described as coerced confessions.
It additionally for the primary time clearly recognized Iranian intelligence officers as being behind Cha’ab’s abduction, saying that its “unknown troopers” captured him in Turkey in November 2019. Iran has used comparable ruses to seize its enemies overseas, together with the exiled journalist Ruhollah Zam who was executed in 2020.
Swedish International Minister Tobias Billstrom condemned Cha’ab’s execution.
“The dying penalty is an inhumane and irrevocable punishment, and Sweden, along with the remainder of the (European Union), condemns its use below all circumstances,” he stated in a press release.
The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights individually condemned the execution, referring to Cha’ab’s closed-door trial as “grossly unfair.”
“That is an instance of the Islamic Republic’s state terrorism,” stated Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the group’s director. “We count on that the EU and Swedish authorities present sufficient response to the homicide of their citizen. Killing a hostage should not be tolerated.”
Tensions already had escalated between Iran and Sweden over the life imprisonment of Hamid Noury, an Iranian convicted in Sweden of committing grave conflict crimes and homicide throughout the remaining section of the Iran-Iraq conflict within the Nineteen Eighties. The top of the conflict noticed mass executions of an estimated 5,000 Iranian prisoners, together with these from an exiled opposition group and others.
The 2018 assault in Iran focused a navy parade in Ahvaz in Khuzestan, the chaos captured reside on state tv. Militants disguised as troopers opened fireplace, killing at the very least 25 individuals and wounding over 60 others within the deadliest assault to strike Iran in years. A spokesman for the separatist group claimed the assault shortly after in a televised interview. The Islamic State group additionally claimed the assault, although it supplied factually incorrect particulars in regards to the assault.
In latest months, Iran has carried out different executions after the months of unrest over the September dying of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini following her arrest by the nation’s morality police. In January, Iran executed a former high-ranking protection ministry official and twin Iranian-British nationwide accused of spying.
Additionally dealing with a attainable execution is an Iranian-German nationwide who lived in California, a person Iran describes as planning a 2008 assault on a mosque that killed 14 individuals and wounded over 200 others, in addition to different assaults by way of the little-known Kingdom Meeting of Iran and its Tondar militant wing. His household lengthy has stated he was captured by Iranian intelligence in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
Iran is without doubt one of the world’s high executioners.
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Related Press author Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
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