Iran's Judiciary Insists Execution Of Swedish-Iranian Goes Ahead

Iranian judiciary spokesperson Masoud Setayeshi said Tuesday that Swedish-Iranian scientist Ahmadreza Djalali would be executed in due course.

In his first press conference in post, Setayeshi ruled out exchanging Djalali with another prisoner and any link between the Djalali case and Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian official on trial in Sweden over his alleged role in a wave of prison executions in 1988.

As well as calls for Djalali’s release from Sweden and the European Union, there has been speculation over a possible prisoner swap, but in early May, ISNA news agency suggested Djalali would be executed by May 21.

Setayeshi said that Nouri had been charged under influence from the exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). Most of those executed in 1988 were MEK members or sympathizers, and some trial sessions have been held in Albania, where the MEK is based. Sweden arrested Nouri in 2019 as he arrived at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport on holiday and has prosecuted him under principles of universal justice.

Setayeshi also addressed the case of Assadollah Assadi, who was jailed February for 20 years for planning a bombing of an MEK gathering in France in 2018. The spokesman said Assadi’s arrest, prosecution and sentencing were not legal, and called for his release.

Djalali was arrested while visiting Iran in 2016 and sentenced on espionage charges. Amnesty International recently called him a “pawn in a cruel political game” as Iran escalated “their threats to execute him in retaliation for their demands going unmet.”