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SWEDEN AND IRAN

Two Swedes, including EU diplomat, freed in Iran prisoner swap: PM

A Swedish EU diplomat and another Swede held in Iran have been released in exchange for an Iranian serving a life sentence in Sweden, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced on Saturday.

Published: 15 June 2024 17:38 CEST

Swedish EU diplomat Johan Floderus (C) attends a court session in Tehran

Swedish EU diplomat Johan Floderus (C) attends a court session in Tehran on December 10, 2023. Floderus and another Swede held in Iran have been released and are on a flight home to Sweden, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced on June 15, 2024. (Photo by Amir Abbas GHASEMI / MIZAN NEWS AGENCY / AFP)

Johan Floderus, who has been held in Iran since April 2022 and faced the death penalty on spying charges, and Saeed Azizi, who was arrested in November 2023, were on a flight to Sweden “and will finally be reunited with their relatives”, Kristersson said in a statement.

The announcement coincided with a statement from Iran that Hamid Noury, a former Iranian prison official jailed for life in Sweden, had been freed and would return to the Islamic republic soon.

READ ALSO: Iranian journalist in hiding in Sweden after Iran puts his name on ‘death list’

Kristersson said Iran had made Floderus and Azizi “pawns in a cynical negotiation game, with the aim of getting Iranian citizen Hamid Noury released from prison in Sweden”.

Noury, a 62-year-old Iranian former prison official, is serving a life sentence in Sweden for his role in mass executions in Iran in 1988.

“As Prime Minister, I have a special responsibility for the safety of Swedish citizens. The government has therefore worked intensively on the issue, together with the Swedish security service, which has negotiated with Iran,” he said.

“It has been clear all along that the operation would require some difficult decisions. Now we have made those decisions.”

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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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