Hamid Nouri’s torture in Swedish jail bears traces of Israeli tactics
Iranian prisoner Hamid Nouri's son provides documents proving his father was wrongfully detained.
Iranian prisoner Hamid Nouri was exposed to torture since his arrest more than three years ago in Sweden, says his son Majid Nouri, who argues that the systematic torture inflicted on Nouri has Israeli fingerprints all over it.
Majid Nouri made the comments in an interview with IRNA that was published on Saturday. In the interview, he provided a comprehensive account of how his father was wrongfully detained, subjected to torture, placed in seclusion, and given a life sentence by a kangaroo court in Sweden.
“We regard the model of torture against my father, which includes severe restrictions and imbalance in services, to be the Israeli model,” he said, adding that the American model is more brutal than the Israeli one.
“As far as we know, my father has been beaten twice, but his mental and psychological symptoms fit the Israeli and British model,” he said.
In reference to the propaganda campaign targeting his father’s case, he said, “We feel that the intelligence elements of these two, especially the Zionist regime, are behind this.”
Who is Hamid Nouri?
Former Iranian judiciary officer Hamid Nouri was detained and imprisoned right away after arriving in Sweden in November 2019 through Stockholm Airport. On the basis of false accusations made by the terrorist organization Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), he was put on trial.
Nouri was accused of being involved in the execution and torture of MKO members in 1988, but he has vehemently rejected the allegation.
He was given a life sentence by a Swedish court in July. Based on the MKO claims, the court—which Iran initially claimed was illegal—convicted Nouri of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Solitary confinement amounts to torture
“The worst thing that is happening to him is the solitary confinement, while under European countries’ laws, solitary confinement for more than 10 days amounts to torture,” Majid Nouri said.
According to him, his father has spent more than three years in solitary confinement in a small cell under the pretense that the Swedish government is "protecting him."
On the other hand, he said that Nouri was denied access to his family for eight months, which he denounced as another instance of a father's rights being violated.
“My father was not even allowed to see his family for 25 months,” he said, adding that a 20-minute meeting finally happened under very strict conditions.
He explained that a year after Nouri’s arrest, the Swedish authorities gave him and his mother the green light to come to Sweden to visit Nouri, but the meeting was delayed over and over again, until they were finally allowed to meet him on condition that they be interrogated.
Witnesses rejected by court
Nouri's son recounted the problems his father faced while trying to defend himself during his trial, including the fact that he was not able to have a lawyer of his choosing.
“My father knows neither English nor Swedish, so he needs to talk to someone in this country who can give advice,” he said.
He also said that the accusers were allowed to freely hurl insults and level allegations during the trial while his father was constantly interrupted and given much less time to defend him against the accusations.
“We even had witnesses who wanted to come to the court and testify, but neither the public defenders allowed them to come nor the Swedish judicial system accepted the request,” he said, adding, “That is, we were fighting on two fronts.”
Lawyers threatened by MKO elements
Nouri claimed that the MKO faction's propaganda offensive, which began after his father's incarceration, scared many witnesses away from the case. “We talked to more than ten lawyers, many of whom were later threatened by the MKO,” he said.
The MKO elements “even created problems for the wife of one of our lawyers and she was forced to resign,” he added, criticizing the Swedish security system for allowing such threats to be made.
He argued that the plot against Hamid Nouri was orchestrated by forces much more powerful than the MKO.
“In this pre-planned project, each person has played their role, and they get dismissed as soon as they become expendable,” he said. “Likewise, the people who are in charge now will dismiss everyone when the project is completed.”
It is worth noting that the MKO has been responsible for numerous assassinations and bombings of top-ranking Iranian officials since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks over the past four decades, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the group's acts of terror.