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SWEDEN AND IRAN

Iran says Swede arrested for alleged espionage

Iran said on Saturday it had arrested a Swedish national on allegations of espionage, without providing details on the suspect's identity nor the date of their detention.

Published: 30 July 2022 14:44 CEST
Iran says Swede arrested for alleged espionage
The flag of Iran waves in front of the the International Center building in Vienna, Austria. File photo: AP Photo/Michael Gruber/TT

The announcement comes amid diplomatic tensions between Tehran and Stockholm, after a Swedish court sentenced a former Iranian prison official to life for war crimes during mass executions in the Islamic republic in 1988.

Iran’s intelligence ministry said it had “identified and arrested a national of the Kingdom of Sweden suspected of espionage”.

In early May, the Swedish foreign ministry said a Swede in his thirties had been arrested in Iran.

It was not immediately clear if the announcement on Saturday refers to that man or another Swede.

“In all the previous trips, the suspect… communicated with a number of European and non-European suspects who were under surveillance in Iran,” the statement read.

“The suspect in question re-entered the country a few months ago after the arrest of another European spy” to collect information, it alleged, adding the suspect had been taken into custody while leaving Iran.

The intelligence ministry said the suspect had visited Israel, the Islamic republic’s arch-enemy, before going to Iran.

It also alleged Sweden had “supported several proxy spies” for Israel, including Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian academic who has been sentenced to death in the Islamic republic.

Djalali’s sentence was issued in 2017 after he was convicted of passing information about two Iranian nuclear scientists to Israel’s Mossad spy agency that led to their assassinations.

He was granted Swedish citizenship the following year.

His case was followed by the trial in Stockholm of Hamid Noury, a former official in Iran’s judiciary accused of war crimes over the killing of prisoners in Iran during the 1980s.

Noury received a life sentence from a Swedish court on July 14th. Iran dismissed the verdict as “political” and has called for his release.

Relations between to the two countries have been strained over the case, with Tehran recalling its ambassador to Sweden for consultations a week later.

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SWEDEN AND IRAN

Swedish diplomat says he discovered ‘a strength within’ in Iran prison

The now-free Swedish diplomat Johan Floderus has spoken in interviews about his almost 800 days in Iran's notorious Evin prison.

Published: 5 July 2024 06:51 CEST
Swedish diplomat says he discovered 'a strength within' in Iran prison

Released in mid-June, Floderus and another Swedish citizen were part of a prisoner exchange that saw a former prison official return to Iran.

When asked how he has been since gaining his freedom, Floderus smiled while choosing his words carefully.

“I’m doing well. My family has done everything to give me the sort of soft landing that I think I really needed upon my return,” he told AFP.

Floderus was arrested in Iran as he was about to return home from a holiday with his friends in April 2022.

“I was about to text my friends and tell them: ‘look I’ve arrived at the airport but something is going on.’ But that’s when somebody came and took the phone away and said that’s not allowed,” he said.

The EU diplomat was then taken by car to the north of Tehran, where he recognised Evin prison.

“I had to take off my clothes and put on the prison uniform, sign some documents,” he said.

‘Confusion, anxiety, despair’

He was blindfolded and led through corridors of the huge prison.

“I couldn’t see where I was going, I could only see my feet really on the floor.”

After two or three days alone in a cell, he was brought before what others called a judge.

“I was relieved to go there because I thought: ‘finally this mistake will be resolved’,” he said.

“But on the contrary, this man told me that I was accused of espionage against the Islamic Republic of Iran and that’s the moment where everything kind of went black.”

At that moment, Floderus said he felt faint.

It was then that the judge noticed and told him not to worry.

“I was just going to be their guest for two or three days but I would remain there for the next two years and two months,” Floderus said.

The diplomat spent the first two months in “confusion, anxiety, despair” in solitary confinement before being moved to a group cell.

There, Floderus and the other prisoners were able to speak freely with one another.

“When I told them about what had happened to me, who I was, they told me, but Johan, you’re a hostage,” he said.

After a month with the other detainees, the Swede was taken to solitary confinement – where he spent six months.

It was then that Floderus began looking for ways to survive.

“But as time went by and the months passed in solitary confinement, I realised that I would not survive if I let myself be affected by bad news or the absence of news,” he said.

Floderus said he then tried to live with something other than hope.

“I discovered a strength within me that was more constant and that I could always rely on and that wouldn’t leave me even in the darkest moments.”

New trial

In December 2023, Floderus went on trial and was accused of one of the most serious charges in Iran which was punishable by death.

That same month, Iranian Hamid Noury saw his life sentence for his role in the mass executions of prisoners ordered by Tehran in 1988 upheld by a Swedish appeal court.

“I knew from an early stage that the only way in which I will see my family and loved ones again is through a prisoner exchange,” he said.

“Sweden is not the first country that has taken this decision.”

Floderus did not believe he would ever be released until he was taken to Tehran airport on June 15th.

As soon as he got off the plane in Stockholm he proposed to his boyfriend as Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson looked on.

“I want to go back to the life that my fiance and I were leading before this happened,” he said.

“Because two years and two months have been stolen from us and now we want to take them back.”

Floderus was released together with fellow Swede Saeed Azizi. Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian researcher, remains imprisoned in Iran. 

Article by AFP’s Etienne Fontaine

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