Sweden and Iran change prisoners in deal: officers

Sweden and Iran have carried out a prisoner change, officers say, with Sweden liberating a former Iranian official convicted for his function in a mass execution within the Nineteen Eighties whereas Iran launched two Swedes being held there.

The prisoner swap was mediated by Oman, the nation’s overseas ministry stated in an announcement.

“Omani efforts resulted within the two sides agreeing on a mutual launch, as these launched have been transferred from Tehran and Stockholm,” it stated.

Sweden had freed former Iranian official Hamid Noury, Iran’s prime human rights official stated on X.

Noury, who had been convicted for his half in a mass execution of political prisoners in Iran in 1988, can be again in Iran in a couple of hours, the official added.

Individually, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson stated in an announcement that Swedish residents Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi who had been detained in Iran have been on a aircraft again to Sweden.

“Iran used them each as pawns in a cynical negotiations recreation with the aim of getting the Iranian citizen Hamid Noury launched from jail in Sweden. He’s convicted of significant crimes dedicated in Iran within the Nineteen Eighties,” Kristersson stated.

“As prime minister I’ve a particular accountability for Swedish residents’ security. The federal government has subsequently labored intensively on the problem, along with the Swedish safety providers which have negotiated with Iran.”

Kristersson confirmed in a video launched by the federal government that Noury was now being transported again to Iran.

Kristersson declined to provide additional particulars across the concerns, citing safety issues.

Noury, 63, was arrested at a Stockholm airport in 2019 and later sentenced to life in jail for battle crimes for the mass execution and torture of political prisoners on the Gohardasht jail in Karaj, Iran, in 1988.

He denied the fees.

The Nationwide Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of teams against Iran’s Islamic Republic authorities, stated it appeared Sweden had yielded to blackmail and hostage-taking ways in a transfer that might encourage Iran.

Lawyer Kenneth Lewis, who represented a dozen plaintiffs within the Noury case in Sweden, stated his purchasers weren’t consulted and have been “appalled and devastated” over Noury’s launch.

“That is an affront to your entire justice system and everybody who has participated in these trials,” he informed Reuters.

Lewis stated his purchasers sympathised with the Swedish authorities’s efforts to get its residents house however stated Noury’s launch was “completely disproportionate”.

Floderus, a European Union worker, was arrested in Iran in 2022 and charged with spying for Israel and “corruption on earth,” against the law that carries the demise penalty.

Swedish-Iranian twin citizen Saeed Azizi was arrested in Iran in November 2023, on what Sweden known as “wrongful grounds”.

One other Swedish-Iranian twin citizen, Ahmadreza Djalali, arrested in 2016, stays in an Iranian jail.

An emergency drugs physician, Djalali was arrested in 2016 whereas on a tutorial go to to Iran.