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
https://arab.news/ycprc
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
UK government publishes files about the appointment of Epstein friend Mandelson to ambassador post
- The government has said the files will show that Mandelson misled officials about the extent of the relationship
- Starmer is facing a political storm over his decision to give him the Washington job
LONDON: The British government on Wednesday published a batch of documents related to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, as police investigate potential misconduct stemming from the ex-diplomat’s ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein.
The 147-page release was published Wednesday on the government website.
Lawmakers have forced Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government to disclose thousands of files about the decision to name Mandelson to the key diplomatic post at the start of US President Donald Trump’s second term, despite a past friendship with the convicted sex offender.
The government has said the files will show that Mandelson misled officials about the extent of the relationship. But Starmer is facing a political storm over his decision to give him the Washington job.
Mandelson, 72, a former Cabinet minister, ambassador and elder statesman of the governing Labour Party, was arrested Feb. 23 at his London home on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He has been released without bail conditions as the police investigation continues.
He has previously denied wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged. He does not face allegations of sexual misconduct.
Cabinet minister Darren Jones said the “first tranche of documents” will be published Wednesday afternoon.
The documents are being published in batches after review by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. Police have asked the government not to release files that could compromise their criminal investigation into Mandelson.
“The documents that will be published today later to Parliament will provide full transparency about the appointments process, bar one document that has been held back by the Metropolitan Police because of an ongoing criminal investigation,” Jones told broadcaster ITV.
Starmer fired Mandelson in September after an earlier release of documents showed he had maintained contact with Epstein after the financier’s 2008 conviction for sexual offenses involving a minor.
Further details about Mandelson’s ties with Epstein, revealed in a huge trove of files published by the US Department of Justice in January, drove opponents and even some members of Starmer’s Labour Party to call for the prime minister’s resignation. Starmer survived the immediate danger, but his position remains fragile, even though he never met Epstein and is not implicated in his crimes.
Starmer has apologized to Epstein’s victims and said he was sorry for “having believed Mandelson’s lies.”
The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson sent market-sensitive information to the convicted sex offender when he was the UK government’s business secretary after the 2008 financial crisis.
That includes an internal government report discussing ways the UK could raise money, including by selling off government assets. Mandelson also appears to have told Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses.
Mandelson is also facing a separate probe by the European Union’s anti-fraud office for the time he spent as the bloc’s trade representative.
