Sweden and Iran reached a prisoner swap agreement involving the release of two Swedish nationals and one Iranian, but many remain behind.
On Saturday, Iran and Sweden exchanged prisoners, breaking a deadlock. The agreement covers the release of two Swedish nationals EU official Johan Floderus, detained in 2019, and Saeed Azizi, detained in 2023. Stockholm for its part will hand over Hamid Noori, who is serving a life sentence in Sweden for his involvement in the deaths of political prisoners.
The Swedish government has worked intensively for them to be released. It is with pleasure that I can announce that Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi are now on a plane home to Sweden, and will soon be reunited with their families, the prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said on social media.
Floderus faced charges of espionage and corruption, while Azizi received charges of conspiracy against national security. They have both consistently denied these charges, which human rights activists have called fabricated. Floderus came under arrest in Iran in April 2022 while on a personal trip to visit friends. His arrest remained secret for more than a year until it came to light in September 2023. Azizi’s five-year prison sentence on national security charges upheld earlier this year. He faced arrest in Iran in November.
Sweden released Hamid Nouri, an Iranian judicial official sentenced to life imprisonment by a Swedish court for torture, war crimes and the mass execution of 5,000 dissidents in 1988, sent to the gallows without trial.
Nassim Papayianni, a campaigner for Amnesty International, said: “It’s been more than 30 years that survivors and families of the victims [of the 1988 massacres] have been trying to seek truth and justice both inside and outside of Iran – and the prosecution of Nouri in Sweden was really the first time any Iranian official was held accountable.”
According to a statement by the Omani news agency, the exchange coordinated with Omani assistance. EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell thanked Swedish and Iranian authorities on Saturday. Ylva Johansson, the Swedish EU commissioner in whose team Floderus has worked, said:
Johan is finally free, after more than two years wrongfully imprisoned in an Iranian jail. I am so, so, so happy. I am happy for Johan, for his family and his friends. Every day, in these last two years, Johan has been in our minds and our hearts. We spoke about him every day and now we are just all so relieved and happy to finally be able to say: “Johan, welcome home.”
Prisoner exchanges sparked criticism
The exchange spurred anxiety over Iran’s reward for systematically arresting foreign nationals on trumped-up charges, usually espionage or other political offences, in order to extract concessions from Western countries. Gissou Nia, the chairwoman of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre in New Haven, Conn, said:
“This was an affront to justice.There has been a standing request for countries that have universal jurisdiction to open investigations into Iranian officials, including for the women-led protests.” The statement served as a reference to the mass protests of 2022, which began with the death of a woman.
On Saturday, family members of both these victims and dozens of others from around the world who remain in Iranian custody also voiced outrage over the messaging. Many of these people expressed their frustration on social media.
Among the prisoners still in custody is Ahmadreza Djalali, a scientist sentenced to death on vague charges of espionage and helping Israel assassinate nuclear scientists are Swedish citizens. Mr Jalili’s wife, Vida Mehrannia, said in a telephone interview that she was shocked when she heard from the media about the exchange this morning and devastated that her husband had stayed home.
“The Swedish government abandoned my husband,” she said. “If you are going to release a murderer with the blood of 5,000 people on his hands, you must demand the release of all Swedish citizens and all European citizens.” She added her husband called her from prison today and said he had heard the news in the Iranian media and felt demoralised that Sweden had left him behind.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström responded by saying that Iran had refused to even consider Jalali a Swedish citizen after he obtained citizenship in the Scandinavian country where he lived and worked before his arrest.
