DUBAI: Iran and Sweden on Saturday carried out a prisoner swap that involves the release of Hamid Nouri, convicted of war crimes by Sweden over 1988 mass executions in the Islamic Republic, in exchange for a European Union diplomat and another man held by Tehran.
Iran released Johan Floderus, a Swede who had been working for the EU’s diplomatic corps, as well as a man identified as Saeed Azizi by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
They “are now on a plane home to Sweden, and will soon be reunited with their families,” Kristersson wrote on the social platform X.
Oman mediated the swap, the state-run Oman News Agency reported. Iranian state television reported Nouri was already freed and would be heading back to Tehran.
In 2022, the Stockholm District Court sentenced Nouri to life in prison over his role in the executions. It identified him as an assistant to the deputy prosecutor at the Gohardasht prison outside the Iranian city of Karaj.
The 1988 mass executions came at the end of Iran’s long war with Iraq. After Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a United Nations-brokered ceasefire, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, heavily armed by Saddam Hussein, stormed across the Iranian border in a surprise attack.
Iran ultimately blunted their assault, but the attack set the stage for the sham retrials of political prisoners, militants and others that would become known as “death commissions.”
International rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed. Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions, apparently carried out on Khomeini’s orders, though some argue that other top officials were effectively in charge in the months before his 1989 death.
Late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash in May, also was involved in the mass executions.
Floderus’ family said he was arrested in April 2022 at the Tehran airport while returning from a vacation with friends. His detention represented yet another case of Tehran using foreigners or those with dual nationalities as pawns in negotiations with the West.
Azizi’s case was not as prominent as Floderus’. In February, the group Human Rights Activists in Iran reported that the dual Iranian-Swedish national had been sentenced to five years in prison by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security.” The group said Azizi has cancer.
Iran and Sweden carry out a prisoner swap, freeing man convicted of war crimes over 1988 executions
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Iran and Sweden carry out a prisoner swap, freeing man convicted of war crimes over 1988 executions
- Iran released Johan Floderus, a Swede who had been working for the EU’s diplomatic corps, as well as a man identified as Saeed Azizi
Russian police and National Guard will stay in Ukraine’s Donbas postwar, a Kremlin official says
- The remarks by Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov underscore Moscow’s ambition to maintain its presence in Donbas post-war
- Ukraine is likely to reject such a stance as US-led negotiations drag on
KYIV: A senior Kremlin official said Friday that Russian police and National Guard will stay on in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas and oversee the industry-rich region, even if a peace settlement ends Russia’s nearly four-year war in Ukraine.
The remarks by Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov underscore Moscow’s ambition to maintain its presence in Donbas post-war. Ukraine is likely to reject such a stance as US-led negotiations drag on.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian units have recaptured several settlements and neighborhoods near the city of Kupiansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region, following a monthslong operation aimed at reversing Russian advances there.
Kupiansk has in recent months been one of the most closely contested sectors of the around 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, and the claimed Ukrainian progress of around 40 sq. km. (15 sq. miles) would be a setback for Russia.
Less than two months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukrainian troops in Kupiansk were surrounded and offered to negotiate their surrender. He said a media visit to the area would prove it. Putin has sought to portray Russia as negotiating from a position of strength in the war.
Ukrainian weapons
Ukraine also has developed its long-range strike capabilities using domestically produced weapons to disrupt Russia’s war machine.
Its Special Operations Forces, or SSO, said Friday that an operation in the Caspian Sea struck two Russian vessels carrying military equipment and arms.
The ships named Kompozitor Rakhmaninov and Askar-Saridzha are under US sanctions for transporting arms between Russia and Iran, the SSO said in a statement on social media. It didn’t say what weapons it used in its attack.
Cross-border drone strikes
A Ukrainian drone attack wounded seven people, including a child, in the Russian city of Tver, acting Gov. Vitaly Korolev said Friday. Falling drone debris struck an apartment building in the city, which lies northwest of Moscow, Korolev said.
Russia’s air defenses destroyed 90 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.
Russian drones struck a residential area of Pavlohrad, in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, killing one person and wounding four others, the head of the local military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko, wrote on the Telegram messaging channel on Friday.
Ukraine’s southern Odesa region came under a large-scale drone attack overnight, according to regional chief Oleh Kiper. The attack damaged energy infrastructure, he said. More than 90,000 people were without electricity on Friday morning, Deputy Energy Minister Roman Andarak said.
Ukraine’s air force said that Russia launched 80 drones across the country during the night.
