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
France to vaccinate cattle for lumpy skin disease as farmers protest against cull
- The announcement comes after several outbreaks of the highly contagious disease prompted authorities to order the culling of entire herds
PARIS: France will vaccinate 1 million head of cattle in the coming weeks against lumpy skin disease, Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard said on Saturday, as protesting farmers blocked roads in opposition to the government’s large-scale culling policy.
The announcement comes after several outbreaks of the highly contagious disease prompted authorities to order the culling of entire herds, sparking demonstrations by farmers who consider the measure excessive.
Lumpy skin disease is a virus spread by insects that affects cattle and buffalo, causing blisters and reducing milk production. While not harmful to humans, it often results in trade restrictions and severe economic losses.
“We will vaccinate nearly one million animals in the coming weeks and protect farmers. I want to reiterate that the state will stand by affected farmers, their losses will be compensated as well as their operating losses,” Genevard told local radio network ICI.
France says that total culling of infected herds, alongside vaccination and movement restrictions, is necessary to contain the disease and allow cattle exports. If the disease continues to spread in livestock farms, it could kill “at the very least, 1.5 million cattle,” Genevard told Le Parisien daily in a previous interview.
A portion of the A64 motorway south of Toulouse remained blocked since Friday afternoon, with about 400 farmers and some 60 tractors still in place on Saturday morning, according to local media.
The government, backed by the main FNSEA farming union, maintains that total culling of infected herds is necessary to prevent the disease from spreading and triggering export bans that would devastate the sector.
But the Coordination Rurale, a rival union, opposes the systematic culling approach, calling instead for targeted measures and quarantine protocols.
“Vaccination will be mandatory because vaccination is protection against the disease,” Genevard said, adding that complete culling remains necessary in some cases because the disease can be asymptomatic and undetectable.
France detected 110 outbreaks across nine departments and culled about 3,000 animals, according to the agriculture ministry. It has paid nearly six million euros to farmers since the first outbreak on June 29.
