Stockholm and Tehran have agreed to a prisoner exchange. Hamid Nouri, one of those responsible for the mass executions of opponents ordered by Tehran in 1988, was released from Sweden.
Iran and Sweden concluded on Saturday a prisoner exchange who saw the liberation of Hamid Nouriconvicted by Sweden of war crimes during mass executions in the Islamic Republic in 1988in exchange for a European Union diplomat and another man detained by Tehran.
Iran freed Johan Floderus, a Swede who worked for the EU diplomatic corps, already a man identified as Saeed Azizi by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. The two “are now on a plane that will take them back to Sweden and will soon be reunited with their families,” Kristersson wrote in X.
Oman negotiated the exchange, according to the state-run Oman News Agency. The Iranian state television reported that Nouri had already been released and would return to Tehran.
Life sentence for mass executions in Nouri
In 2022, the Stockholm District Court sentenced Nouri to life in prison for his role in the executions. The court identified him as a deputy deputy prosecutor at Gohardasht prison, outside the Iranian city of Karaj.
The mass executions of 1988 took place at the end of the long war between Iran and Iraq. After Iran’s then supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, agreed to a UN-brokered ceasefire, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, heavily armed by Saddam Hussein, They crossed the border with Iran in a surprise attack.
Iran eventually repelled the assault, but the attack paved the way for show trials of political prisoners, activists and others that would become known as “death commissions.” International human rights groups estimate that almost 5,000 people have been rescued. Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions, which were apparently carried out on Khomeini’s orders, although some claim other senior officials were responsible in the months before his death in 1989.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May, has also been involved in mass executions. Floderus’ family said he was arrested in April 2022 at Tehran airport when he returned from a vacation with friends. His arrest represents a new use case by Tehran of foreigners or people with dual nationality as pawns in negotiations with the West.
In February, the group Human Rights Activists in Iran reported that the Tehran Revolutionary Court had Iranian-Swedish citizen Azizi sentenced to five years of prison for “assembly and collusion against national security”. The group stated that Azizi was suffering from cancer. He was the victim of a helicopter crash in May and has also been involved in mass executions.
Von der Leyen, satisfied with the liberation of the men “of unjustified Iranian custody”
The current president of the European Commission wanted to congratulate Sweden on the exchange: “Delighted with the news that our Swedish colleague Johan Floderus and his compatriot Saeed Azizi have been released from unjustified Iranian custody. I wish you a good reunion with your loved ones. “Congratulations to Sweden for their persistent work to achieve this result.”
