24 July 2022 :

July 15, 2022

Javaid Rehman lauded a landmark universal jurisdiction conviction in Sweden against Hamid Noury (also Nouri), an Iranian official accused of mass atrocities. The Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran said today, “The process and verdict in Sweden constitute a landmark and important leap forward in the pursuit of truth and justice for a dark chapter in Iranian history. It is also a clear signal that denial, despite substantive evidence, and impunity can no longer be tolerated.”
Rehman today hailed the conviction of Noury for his involvement in summary executions and enforced disappearances against political dissidents in 1988. At the time, Noury was a prosecutor and prison official. Civil society organisations estimate that several thousand political prisoners were executed.
The court found Hamid Nouri guilty of war crimes and murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Sweden’s principle of universal jurisdiction allows its courts to try a person on serious charges such as murder or war crimes regardless of where the alleged offenses took place.
“I urge other States to take on similar investigation and prosecution of serious human rights violations in Iran using principles of universal jurisdiction. There is a serious accountability gap for past and present gross violations of human rights law, and national courts in other States play a fundamental role in filling that gap,” the expert said.
“Together with my predecessors and colleagues in Special Procedures, I have repeatedly called for accountability for the summary executions and enforced disappearances of 1988 and sought to engage with authorities in this regard,” the Special Rapporteur said.
“However, the events continue to be denied by Iranian authorities. I hope this verdict is a first step towards full truth, justice and compensation for victims, their families and civil society organisations that persist in their demands for justice”.
Mr. Javaid Rehman was appointed as the third Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran since re-establishment of the mandate in July 2018. Mr. Rehman is a Professor of International Human Rights Law and Muslim Constitutionalism at Brunel University, London. Mr Rehman teaches human rights law and Islamic law and continues to publish extensively in the subjects of international human rights law, Islamic law and constitutional practices of Muslim majority States.
The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organisation and serve in their individual capacity.

https://iranhumanrights.org/2022/07/un-expert-welcomes-historic-verdict-in-universal-jurisdiction-case-on-iran/

15 July 2022 :

On Thursday, July 14, the Stockholm District Court sentenced Hamid Noury to life. Judge Thomas Sanders sentenced Noury to life imprisonment for “serious crimes against international law” and “murder.”
“This is a question of exceptionally serious crimes with such a high penalty value that the sanction cannot be anything less than lifetime imprisonment,” Swedish judges read the verdict for Noury. According to the ruling, this criminal would be permanently expelled from Sweden after serving his sentence.
Back in November 2019, Noury was detained in Stockholm airport for his involvement in the mass executions of political prisoners in 1988. Sweden’s principle of universal jurisdiction allows its courts to try a person on serious charges such as murder or war crimes regardless of where the alleged offenses occurred.
Iran has condemned the decision of the Swedish court.
"Iran is absolutely certain that Noury's sentence was politically motivated and it has no legal validity," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in a statement.
The court said Noury participated “in the executions of many political prisoners in Iran in the summer of 1988" and had “the role of assistant to the deputy prosecutor” at the Gohardasht prison in Karaj, Iran, "jointly and in collusion with others been involved in the executions."
Noury was arrested at a Stockholm airport in 2019 and was charged with war crimes for the mass execution and torture of political prisoners at the Gohardasht prison in Karaj in 1988.

Sweden's principle of universal jurisdiction allows its courts to try a person on serious charges such as murder or war crimes regardless of where the alleged offenses took place.
Noury is the only person so far to be tried in the mass executions. He has denied the charges.
The trial, which began in August 2021, is particularly sensitive in Iran, where current government figures have been accused of having a role in the 1988 deaths, most notably President Ebrahim Raisi.
Raisi, a former chief of Iran's judiciary, has denied involvement in the killings, and Tehran has called Nouri's trial “illegal.”
"Sweden should provide the grounds for the release of Nouri as soon as possible," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani told a news conference on July 13.
Some in the West have expressed concerns about possible reprisals and use in blackmail terms against Western of  prisoners held by Tehran. In that case, two Swedish-Iranian citizens are on death row in Iran as Ahmadreza Djalali.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), described the ruling as a triumph for justice.
“The Swedish Judiciary issued a life sentence for Hamid Noury, one of the perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity in the 1988 massacre,” Mrs. Rajavi stated. “I welcome the Swedish Judiciary’s ruling and reiterate that the prosecution of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and regime president Ebrahim Raisi is now more imperative than ever.”

(Source: Ansa, Euronews July 15 2022)

23 May 2022 :

The wife of Ahmadreza Djalali on Saturday called on the European Union to secure her husband’s release.
“I hope that the the EU can really act decisively in order to bring Ahmadreza home,” Vida Mehrannia said according to excerpts of an interview on Germany’s ZDF channel.
The EU must “not allow an innocent man to be killed in such an inhuman way”, she added.
Djalali was sentenced to death in 2017 on the espionage charges, allegations denied by Sweden and his supporters.
Iranian media had said he could be hanged on Saturday, a sentence that Iranian officials have said they want to carry out.
According to his wife, the execution did not take place.
She said Iran’s justice minister was considering a postponement of the sentence.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday called for Tehran to suspend the execution, and requested the revocation of his sentence.
Djalali, who was based in Stockholm where he worked for the Karolinska Medical Institute, was arrested during a visit to Iran in 2016.
In February 2018, while he was still in custody, Sweden granted the academic Swedish citizenship.

https://english.shabtabnews.com/2022/05/22/wife-of-swedish-citizen-threatened-with-iran-execution-appeals-to-eu/

19 May 2022 :

In a statement published today, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed deep alarm by the imminent execution of Swedish-Iranian academic, Dr Ahmadreza Djalali and urgently called for Iranian authorities to halt his execution and revoke his death sentence for espionage.
Full text of statement:
"We are deeply alarmed by the imminent execution in the Islamic Republic of Iran of Swedish-Iranian doctor and academic Ahmedreza Djalali and urgently call on the Iranian authorities to halt the execution and revoke his death sentence.
Iranian authorities announced yesterday that while the execution currently scheduled to take place by 21 May maybe postponed following a request from Djalali’s lawyers, “the verdict is final, and the execution will be carried out.”
Djalali was arrested in April 2016 while on a visit to Iran to attend academic workshops on disaster medicine. He was charged with espionage and later convicted and sentenced based on a confession that was reportedly extracted under torture, and after a trial that failed to meet international standards. In the current circumstances, the execution would therefore constitute an arbitrary deprivation of life.
Use of the death penalty for espionage offences is incompatible with international human rights law. Countries that have not yet abolished the death penalty may only impose it for the “most serious crimes”, which is interpreted as crimes of extreme gravity involving intentional killing."

https://iranhr.net/en/articles/5209/

05 May 2022 :

Ahmadreza Djalali at Imminent Risk of Execution. The international community should react in time.
According to Iranian state media, Iranian-Swedish death row prisoner, Dr Ahmadreza Djalali will be executed by May 21, within two weeks.
The scheduled execution which is in reaction to the trial of Hamid Noury for war crimes in Sweden, demonstrates once again that the Islamic Republic of Iran uses the death penalty as an extortion and pressure tool on Western countries. Kazem Gharibabadi, the secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights and deputy chief of the Iranian Judiciary’s International Affairs had threatened on May 2 that the sentences of individuals linked to Sweden would be carried out.
Iran Human Rights calls on the International community once again to stop Ahamdreza Djalali’s execution with timely action.
According to state-run ISNA, the death sentence of Dr Ahmadreza Djalali, a dual national researcher currently on death row for espionage charges, is scheduled to be carried out by the end of the Iranian month of Ordibehesht (May 21).
Ahmadreza Djalali was living in Sweden since 2009 and is a dual Swedish-Iranian national who was a physician crisis management researcher working at the Karolinska Institutet, a medical university near Stockholm. He was also teaching at universities in Italy and Belgium.
Ahmadreza had travelled to Iran at the official invitation of the University of Tehran when he was arrested in April 2016. Initially charged with “collaborating with hostile States”, he was later charged with “efsad-fil-arz (corruption on earth) through espionage for Israel” by the Revolutionary Court of Tehran. The charge was also upheld by the Supreme Court.
Ahmadreza Djalali was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence forces on 24 April 2016 while driving to Karaj. He spent three months in the Ministry’s detention centre where he was subjected to physical and psychological torture and pressure to make false self-incriminating confessions. His forced confessions were aired on national television, and were used as evidence of his guilt at trial.
Ahmadreza’s mother previously told Iran Human Rights: “They threatened Ahmadreza and told him that if he didn’t cooperate with them, they would kill his children in Sweden. They kept him in a solitary cell full of cockroaches and ants for a long time. He was blindfolded and constantly cursed at and humiliated throughout his interrogations in Ward 209 of Evin Prison.”
The threat of Ahmadreza’s execution in retaliation for the trial of an Islamic Republic official in Sweden shows that the Iranian government is using the death penalty as a political tool to achieve its goals. Iran Human Rights warns of the imminent risk to Ahmadreza Djalali’s life should the international community not react in time. According to the 2021 Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran, at least 13 people were executed on the security charges of efsad-fil-arz (corruption on earth), moharebeh (enmity against God) and baghy (armed rebellion).
On May 3, Sweden’s foreign minister has expressed extreme worries over reports about the imminent execution of a Swedish-Iranian scientist jailed in Iran.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Ann Linde reacted to “extremely worrying media reports today that Iran may carry out the death penalty on Ahmadreza Djalali (Jalali)” in the next two weeks.
She said Sweden and the European Union condemn the death penalty and demand that Djalali be released, adding that “We have repeatedly stated this to Iranian representatives. We are in contact with Iran.”
Iran’s semi-official news agency ISNA broke the news earlier in the day, quoting an unnamed official that Djalali was found guilty of “espionage for the Zionist regime” and his death sentence has now been confirmed by the Supreme Court.
Djalali was arrested when he accepted an invitation by a university to visit Iran in 2016. Authorities accused the researcher of espionage – a charge they often use against foreigners and dual nationals that they want to hold as a bargaining chip. Later, Djalali was sentenced to death as Iran tried to ramp up pressure on European countries to free individuals arrested for terrorist activities or on violations of human rights.
The ISNA report also referred to one of these individuals, Hamid Nouri, who was on trial in Sweden until this week, saying that his arrest was meant to put pressure on Iran to release Djalali.
Sweden arrested Nouri, now 61, upon his arrival in Sweden at Stockholm Airport in 2019 and in August 2021put him on trial over the mass execution and torture of political prisoners at Gohardasht Prison in Iran in July and August 1988.
On the Djalali case see also HoC 03/08/2019; 03/08/2019; 21/08/2019; 18/12/2019; 25/11/2020; 01/12/2020; 02/12/2020; 16/12/2020; 18/12/2020; 18/03/2021; 30/03/2021; 15/04/2021; 09/04/2022; 02/05/2022.

https://iranhr.net/en/articles/5178/
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202205040024

05 May 2022 :

Iran summoned Sweden’s ambassador following a request by Swedish prosecutors for life imprisonment for a former Iranian official.
The foreign ministry in Tehran late Sunday “strongly condemned” the arrest and trial of Hamid Noury, 61, as “illegal” and called for halting the proceedings and for his release.
Noury, who has been on trial in Stockholm since last August, faces charges including crimes against humanity and war crimes for being involved in what the court heard were the executions of a large number of prisoners in the 1980s.
Lawyers for Noury, who was arrested at Stockholm airport in November 2019, have denied he was present for the alleged killings.
The prosecution said the prisoners were members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), an exiled opposition organization which Tehran considers a “terrorist group” and has banned since 1981.
The MEK were initially supporters of the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that ousted the shah. But it rapidly fell out with Tehran, backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war and was blamed for a string of attacks in the early 1980s.
Swedish ambassador Mattias Lentz was summoned following a trial session Thursday when prosecutors requested the maximum penalty of life imprisonment for Noury.
The foreign ministry of Sweden in a Twitter post advised its citizens against non-essential travel to the Islamic Republic “due to the security situation.”
Swedish courts are trying Noury under the principle of universal jurisdiction which allows them to handle serious cases such as war crimes regardless of where the offenses were committed.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/tehran-summons-swedens-envoy-over-war-crimes-trial-of-iranian-ex-official/

https://www.ncr-iran.org/it/notizie/diritti-umani-notizie/iran-a-stoccolma-inizia-il-processo-a-hamid-noury-per-il-massacro-del-1988/

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/05/04/sweden-s-historic-trial-of-hamid-noury-accused-of-being-a-key-figure-in-iran-s-1988-executions_5982444_4.html

13 April 2022 :

Ahmadreza Djalali Beaten by Evin Prison Officials
As he is still banned from contact with his family, they are unable to determine the extent of his injuries.
Dr Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian-Swedish scientist on death row in Evin Prison is still banned from contacting his family and “was beaten in the prison infirmary on April 4” according to sources.
According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, Ahmadreza Djalali is being held in poor conditions and banned from contact with his family.
Some of his cellmates have reported that “Ahmadreza Djalali was beaten in the prison infirmary on April 4.”
An informed source told Iran Human Rights: “Ahmadreza protested when he realised that the infirmary staff were stealing his medication and asked them to return them. They ignored his request and proceeded to beat him up.”
Ahmadreza Djalali who had travelled to Iran at the official invitation of the University of Tehran, was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence agents on 24 April 2016 and spent three months in the Ministry’s detention centre.
Initially charged with “collaborating with hostile states”, he was later charged with “efsad-fil-arz (corruption on earth) through espionage for Israel” by the Revolutionary Court of Tehran which was also upheld by the Supreme Court.
More than once the Iranian authorities have "filtered" the news that his execution was imminent. Several international observers believe the allegations of espionage in favor of Israel are unlikely, and equate the "kidnapping" of Djalali to the many other cases of "kidnapping" of foreign citizens or citizens with dual nationality that the Iranian government then uses as an instrument of pressure in negotiations. against sanctions, or to obtain the release of their secret service agents arrested abroad. On 10 March (see HoC on that date) the news that Sweden, after having made the terms of preventive detention expire, gave up trying two suspected Iranian secret agents, sending them back to their homeland.
On his case see also HoC 3/12/2022, 14/05/2021, 27/04/2021, 15/04/2021, 30/03/2021, 18/03/2021, 18/12/2020, 16/12/2020, 02/12/2020, 01/12/2020, 25/11/2020, 24/11/2020, 18/12/2019, 25/08/2019, 21/08/2019, 03/08/2019.

https://iranhr.net/en/articles/5155/

14 March 2022 :

Sweden renunciates to try two suspected Iranian secret agents
Sweden on March 10 deported back to Iran two alleged Iranian agents who were arrested for links to a terrorist plot, instead of putting them on trial.
According to documents seen by Iran International, the real identity of the two suspects were Fereshteh Sanai-Fari (female) and Mehdi Ramezani (male), who had entered Sweden with fake names of Salma Khormai and Javad Malekshahi, respectively.
The two, who entered Sweden in 2015 as refugees during the great refugee flood to Europe, without any documents, had claimed they were from Afghanistan and lied about their age.
Sweden’s security agencies arrested the female and male suspects in April 2021, but never revealed details of their offenses. The only crime publicly known is their false claims during their refugee hearings and alleged “conspiracy to commit a criminal terrorist act.”
According to a report by IranWire, Sweden's Deputy Chief Prosecutor Hans Ihrman said on Thursday that the two have been repatriated to Iran because the prosecutor’s office hadn’t received the needed documents from security agencies to charge them.
The United States also wanted the suspects but according to Ihrman, the request to extradite the two had not arrived in time before their deportation back to Iran.
IranWire cited an unnamed source as saying that "It seems that the security police did not provide all the information and documents to the prosecutor, who could not indict them without material evidence. The only option the prosecutor had was to request the dismissal of the case."
The Swedish Security Service said they had travelled to Europe as a terrorism sleeper cell, saying they were believed to be agents for the Islamic Republic who sought to execute a terrorist act against Iranian dissidents, apparently American citizens, but didn’t disclose the targets’ names.
Finland-based journalist Kambiz Ghafouri told Iran International that Sweden probably deported them because it is already too busy with trials of similar cases such as Hamid Noury (Nouri) and Kia brothers for their past crimes or links with Iranian intelligence and doesn’t want more tensions in its relations with Tehran.
Sweden is entagled in another Iran-related case. Ghafouri said the Islamic Republic has tied the fate of Iranian-Swedish doctor Ahmadreza Djalali (Jalali) -- who was arrested in 2016 by Iranian intelligence on vague charges of spying and was sentenced to death on October 21, 2017 --to the extradition of Iranian diplomat Asadollah Asadi – who was arrested in 2018 for the attempted bombing of an assembly of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) opposition group near Paris.
There is also the case of Stephen Kevin Gilbert and Simon Kasper Brown, two Swedish nationals charged with drug trafficking in Iran that the Islamic Republic wants to use in a prisoner swap to get Nouri.
Nouri was arrested in November 2019 while visiting Sweden and charged with war crimes for his role in the execution of up to 5,000 political prisoners in Iran serving jail time in 1988.
Peyman Kia, now 41 years old and a former head of Swedish security police, and his brother Payam were arrested late in 2021 in Sweden and are facing espionage charges.
Sweden has a large Iranian community made of former and current refugees, among them many anti-regime activists and human rights advocates.

Sweden Deported Two Iranians For Suspected Role In A Terrorist Plot (iranintl.com)