Swedish court confirms life sentence for Iran ex-prison official

A Swedish appeals court on Tuesday confirmed the conviction of a former Iranian prison official handed a life sentence for crimes committed during a 1988 purge of dissidents. The verdict could have repercussions on the fate of Swedish prisoners in Iran, including EU diplomat Johan Floderus who has been held for more than 600 days.

The Svea Court of Appeal said in a statement it “affirmed the judgment… in significant parts” of 62-year-old Hamid Noury, who in July 2022 was given a life sentence “for grave breaches of international humanitarian law and murder.” Our assessment is that the prosecutor’s case is robust and overall compelling and that the district court was correct to find the prosecutors charges largely substantiated,” judge Robert Green said.

Noury was arrested at a Stockholm airport in November 2019 after Iranian dissidents in Sweden filed police complaints against him.

The case relates to the killing of at least 5,000 prisoners across Iran, allegedly ordered by supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, to avenge attacks carried out by exiled opposition group the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) at the end of the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88. Sweden has tried Noury under its principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows it to try a case regardless of where the offences took place.

The district court found that Noury had been an assistant to a prosecutor in a prison near Tehran at the time of the events and had “retrieved prisoners, brought them to the committee and escorted them to the execution site”. Noury’s defence lawyers had asked the appeals court to acquit him or reduce his sentence.

Source: eNCA

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