Iran, Sweden Free Prisoners In Oman-mediated Swap

Iran and Sweden announced a prisoner exchange on Saturday in which a former Iranian official was released in Sweden in exchange for a European Union diplomat and a second Swede.

Hamid Noury, a 63-year-old Iranian former prisons official serving a life sentence in Sweden, landed at Tehran's Mehrabad airport at around 5:30 pm (1400 GMT) where he was welcomed by family members and officials, state television footage showed.

Earlier, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson had said Johan Floderus, an EU diplomat, and a second Swedish national had been released by Iran and were on a flight home.

He later posted on social media platform X that he had spoken by telephone to the pair while they were on the plane en route to Sweden.

"Long journey ahead but nice to hear their voices," Kristersson said.

"Both said they are doing pretty well under the circumstances. They look forward to coming home and meeting their families," he added.

Floderus, a 33-year-old EU diplomat, had been held in Iran since April 2022 accused of espionage, for which he risked a death sentence.

Following his release, his father, Matts Floderus, told Swedish news agency TT that the family "are of course terribly happy".

The other Swede, Saeed Azizi, had been arrested in November 2023.

State media in neutral Oman, which has acted as a mediator between Iran and Western governments in the past, said that following its mediation, the two governments had agreed to the "mutual release" of detained nationals.

"Those released were transferred from Tehran and Stockholm to Muscat today, 15 June 2024, for their repatriation," the official Oman News Agency said.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanani, thanked the Omani government for brokering the swap. He hailed the exchange as a victory for Iranian diplomacy in "realising and securing national interests as well as firmly supporting the rights of Iranians".

Noury was arrested at Stockholm airport in November 2019 and sentenced to life in prison in July 2022 for his role in mass killings in Iranian jails in 1988.

He thanked the officials and the people of Iran for his release.

He denounced as "traitors who have sold their country" the former rebel People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) whose activists were instrumental in his prosecution and conviction in Sweden.

At least 5,000 prisoners were killed in Iranian jails in 1988 to avenge attacks carried out by the MEK in the closing stages of the Iran-Iraq war, when it fought alongside Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's troops.

The MEK, which remains outlawed as a "terrorist" organisation in Iran, condemned Sweden's decision to release Noury as "shameful and unjustifiable".

It said the exchange would embolden Iran "to step up terrorism, hostage-taking and blackmail".

A Swedish court had convicted Noury of "grave breaches of international humanitarian law and murder". He had argued he was on leave during the period in question.

Iran condemned the sentence but Sweden insisted the trial had been held under its principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows it to try a case regardless of where the alleged offence took place.

Kristersson said Iran had made Floderus and Azizi "pawns in a cynical negotiation game, with the aim of getting Iranian citizen Hamid Noury released from prison in Sweden".

As prime minister, he had "a special responsibility for the safety of Swedish citizens", he added.

"It has been clear all along that the operation would require some difficult decisions. Now we have made those decisions."

At least two other Swedish citizens remain in custody in Iran, including dual national Ahmad Reza Jalali, who is on death row after being convicted of espionage.

Tehran does not recognise dual nationality.

At least six other Europeans are detained in Iran, from Austria, Britain, France and Germany.

On Thursday, French citizen Louis Arnaud, 36, returned to Paris after spending more than 20 months incarcerated in Iran on national security charges.

Olivier Vandecasteele, a Belgian aid worker freed by Tehran in May 2023 in another prisoner swap, described Saturday's release as a "bittersweet moment" because of the other foreigners still held in Iran.

"Our mobilisation isn't over with today's returns," he told AFP. "More still need to get back home to their loved ones."

Activists and some Western governments accuse Iran of pursuing a strategy of taking foreign nationals as hostages to force concessions from the West.

Last year, Oman helped mediate a swap deal between Iran and the United States, as well as facilitating the release of six European detainees in Iran.