European Union diplomat Johan Floderus and one other man, Saeed Azizi, have been launched by Iran in alternate for Iranian nationwide Hamid Nouri who was convicted in Stockholm of committing conflict crimes over his half in 1988 mass executions within the Islamic Republic.
ADVERTISEMENTTwo Swedish residents who have been launched in a prisoner swap with Iran have been reunited with their households after they landed in Stockholm.
European Union diplomat Johan Floderus and one other man, Saeed Azizi, have been launched by Iran in alternate for an Iranian nationwide convicted in Stockholm of committing conflict crimes over his half in 1988 mass executions within the Islamic Republic.
Floderus and Azizi have been met on the airport by Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson and overseas minister Tobias Billström.
Kristersson posted on X that the 2 males had been reunited with their households, ending his publish with ‘Welcome dwelling to Sweden!’
The prisoner alternate occurred on Saturday and noticed Sweden launch Hamid Nouri, who was convicted of conflict crimes over mass executions in 1988.
In 2022, the Stockholm District Court docket sentenced Nouri to life in jail over his position within the executions. It recognized him as an assistant to the deputy prosecutor on the Gohardasht jail exterior the Iranian metropolis of Karaj.
The 1988 mass executions got here on the finish of Iran’s lengthy conflict with Iraq. After Iran’s then-Supreme Chief Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a United Nations-brokered cease-fire, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, closely armed by Saddam Hussein, stormed throughout the Iranian border in a shock assault.
Worldwide rights teams estimate that as many as 5,000 folks have been executed. Iran has by no means totally acknowledged the executions, apparently carried out on Khomeini’s orders.
The household of Johan Floderus, who labored for the European Exterior Motion Service, mentioned he was arrested in April 2022 at Tehran airport whereas getting back from a vacation with associates.
His detention represented yet one more case of Tehran utilizing foreigners or these with twin nationalities as pawns in negotiations with the West.
Azizi’s case was not as outstanding as Floderus’. In February, the group Human Rights Activists in Iran reported that the twin Iranian-Swedish nationwide had been sentenced to 5 years in jail by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court docket on fees of “meeting and collusion towards nationwide safety.” The group mentioned Azizi has most cancers.
