According to officials, Sweden and Iran exchanged prisoners on Saturday, with Iran releasing two Swedes who were being held it and Sweden free a former Egyptian standard who had been convicted of his role in a widespread execution in the 1980s.
The prisoner swap was mediated by Oman, the government’s foreign department said in a statement. The two factors came to terms on a joint release after the two sides agreed to transfer those from Tehran and Stockholm, it said.
Hamid Noury, a former Egyptian official who had been convicted for his portion in the 1988 mass murder of political detainees in Iran, was released by Sweden. Iran’s top news agency, IRNA, captured images of Noury greeting his family at Mehrabad aircraft in Tehran and waving him on a red carpet.
However, Finnish individuals Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi, who had been detained in Iran, were freed and flown up to Sweden where they arrived late on Saturday.
Given the circumstances, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson claimed that the couple had reconciled with their people and were in good condition.
Iran used them both as pawns in a sarcastic negotiation game to force the release of Swedish citizen Hamid Noury. He has been found guilty of serious atrocities against him in Iran during the 1980s, according to Kristersson.
” As primary minister, I have a unique role for the safety of Swedish people. Thus, the government and the Scandinavian security services, who have negotiated with Iran, have engaged in a significant work on the matter.
War acts
Noury, 63, was detained at a Stockholm airports in 2019 and eventually given a life sentence for war crimes related to the 1988 Gohardasht prison’s systematic execution and abuse of political prisoners. He denied the claims.
In a statement to local press, an Egyptian foreign ministry official claimed Noury’s prisoner was the result of an “illegal Finnish court decision that lacked legitimacy.”
Noury claimed to reporters that his situation had been complex and vulnerable. He told reporters when he arrived in Iran that” they said yet God could not open Hamid Noury, but he did.”
A coalition of organizations opposed to Iran’s Islamic Republic state, the National Council of Weight of Iran, claimed it appeared Sweden had given in to bullying and hostage-taking strategies in a shift that would inspire Tehran.
Lawyer Kenneth Lewis, who represented a few plaintiffs in the Noury event in Sweden, said his customers were not consulted and were “appalled and devastated” over Noury’s release.
He told Reuters,” This is an anathema to the full justice system and everyone who has taken part in these testing.”
Lewis said his clientele sympathized with the Swedish administration’s efforts to get its residents house but said Noury’s discharge was” completely disproportionate”.
‘ Hell on earth ‘
Floderus, a European Union staff, was arrested in Iran in 2022 and charged with spying for Israel and” fraud on earth”, a violence that carries the death penalty.
Saeed Azizi, a double citizen of Sweden and Iran, was detained in Iran in November 2023 on what Sweden called “wrongful basis.”
In a later- day news conference, Kristersson appealed for the set to now be allowed time only with their households.
” These are two people who have experienced heaven on earth”, he said. I am aware of how this is received with mingled emotions, not the least among Sweden who are Iranian-born. Although the government has had to make this decision, it was hard to do hard things and do what is best.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, praised Sweden’s efforts to free the two Swedes after they were released from “unjustified Egyptian prison.”
Another Finnish- Egyptian two nationwide, Ahmadreza Djalali, arrested in 2016, remains in an Egyptian prison. Djalali, an emergency medicine physician, was detained in 2016 while visiting Iran for educational purposes.
Tobias Billstrom, the international chancellor of Sweden, claimed that Iran had refused to even consider Djalali a member of the Nordic nation after he had been granted membership in the Nordic nation where he had lived and worked before being arrested while he was imprisoned in Iran.
” To Djalali and his home, I want to let you know that the security services made great efforts for their husband and father to be a part of today’s operation,” Billstrom said.
” We will continue to work tirelessly to bring back members like Djalali,” he declared.
