Sweden upholds life sentence in Iran prison executions case

Sweden's Svea Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a July 2022 Stockholm District Court decision finding Iranian Hamid Nouri guilty of "grave breaches of international humanitarian law and murder."

The lower court's decision to sentence Nouri to life in prison for his role in the 1988 mass execution of political prisoners in Iran was also upheld.

"Our assessment is that the prosecutor's case is robust and compelling overall, and that the District Court was correct to find the prosecutor's charges largely substantiated," said Court of Appeals Judge Robert Green.

Nouri is accused of having directly assisted in the mass execution of political dissidents in Iranian prisons. It is estimated that 5,000 or more people were summarily killed in the purge.

Nouri is the only person ever to stand trial for the killings. He has consistently proclaimed his innocence and his lawyers had called for an acquittal or a reduced sentence.

Universal jurisdiction leads to late justice for victims

The case was tried under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows courts to try individuals no matter where their crimes were allegedly committed. Sweden is one of several predominantly European countries, including Germany, which have such laws and have started to make use of them in recent years, for instance with defendants accused of crimes during Syria's civil war or the Islamic State's occupation of parts of Syria and Iraq.  

This principle, as well as that of international arrest warrants and extradition treaties, give hope to rights groups and victims that some perpetrators of crime who may operate with impunity at home, could one day face arrest and trial for their crimes beyond their borders.

The 1988 executions were allegedly ordered by then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini in retaliation for attacks by the opposition People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) at the close of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

The Nouri case touches a nerve in Tehran, as numerous government officials — including the current Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi — are accused of having served on the committees that condemned imprisoned dissidents to death.

Tehran threatens to execute Swedes in its prisons

The decision to try Nouri incensed Tehran, which called the case against him politically motivated.

As the trial got under way in April 2022, Iran's Islamist government arrested 33-year-old Swedish diplomat Johan Floderus, who was reportedly returning home from a vacation in Iran with friends.

Floderus was subsequently charged with spying on behalf of Israel and of "corruption on earth" — the Iranian government's catch-all term for crimes it considers capital offenses, which can be many and varied in nature but usually claim to pertain to somehow defying Islam. 

In May, Iran executed Swedish-Iranian militant political activist Habib Chaab on charges of corruption on earth.

Sweden has requested the release of Floderus, who has been imprisoned for more than 600 days.

Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali, who was arrested in Iran in 2016, also faces execution on espionage charges.

There has been some speculation of a possible prisoner swap in the Swedish media but Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom has declined to comment on the matter.

Tuesday's Appeals Court decision was greeted with cheers from protesters, mainly exiled Iranians, gathered outside the court. 

js/msh (AFP, Reuters)