Hamid Nouri held as hostage in Sweden, not as prisoner: Iran judiciary

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
2 Jul 2023 15:22

Iran's judiciary strongly condemns the unfair and unjust way his case has been handled so far.

Hamid Nouri pictured (pictured Right) and the Swedish court (pictured Left) (IRNA)

Secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights Kazem Gharibabadi told IRNA on Sunday that Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian judiciary official who has been illegally detained in Sweden since 2019, is held as a hostage and not as a prisoner in Sweden's prisons because there is no legal basis justifying his imprisonment.

He said that Nouri's case is completely a matter of politics, noting that Iran strongly condemns the unfair and unjust way his case has been handled so far.

According to Gharibabadi, Swedish authorities have no relevant proof to justify Nouri's imprisonment and that it has so far only worked in favor of a terror organization, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), who alleged that Nouri was responsible for crimes against humanity.

Gharibabadi, who also serves as deputy chief of the Judiciary, called on Sweden to not jeopardize its own national interests for the sake of such an organization.

In a related context, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said a week ago that "this issue is one of our demands from the Swedish government, and we have always stated that arresting him was invalid and wrong."

Likewise, Judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi said at his press briefing on June 22 that Iran hopes that serious efforts on the part of Swedish authorities would lead to the release of Nouri.

He further pointed out that Nouri's arrest has clearly been orchestrated by the MKO terror group.

On 14 July 2022, Swedish prosecutors called for Nouri's life imprisonment and expulsion with a permanent bar from re-entering Sweden and ordered him to pay damages amounting to 1.2 million SEK.

According to Swedish laws, a foreign individual can't be tried in internal courts under international legitimacy if they (the foreigner) are present in the country against their will, which is the defense the lawyers of Nouri claimed, saying that their client arrived in Sweden against his own will.

Nouri's lawyers said, earlier in April, that his health has deteriorated as a result of the treatment he has received in Swedish detention centers, stressing that his 3.5 years in solitary confinement is the longest any person has ever spent in any jail in any country to date.

Hanna Larsson, Nouri's lawyer, told the Mizan news agency that the 3.5 years Nouri spent in detention should qualify as record-breaking and that the treatment he is subjected to by jailers was "very heinous."

The lawyer added that Nouri's family is prohibited from visiting him, as Swedish authorities have inhumanely rejected the request. "He is entitled to have in-person and virtual meetings, but no meeting is held," Larsson said, noting that the prison authorities have also deprived Nouri of accessing his laptop and iPad over the past weeks.