https://arab.news/24yb5
- Ahmadreza Jalali: ‘It seems to not be a priority for the Swedish officials, what may happen to me as a Swedish citizen while I risk dying either by execution or due to poor health’
- Jalali’s remarks came as German-Iranian Nahid Taghavi was released from Tehran’s Evin prison and returned home on Sunday
STOCKHOLM: Ahmadreza Jalali, an Iranian-Swedish academic on death row in Iran since 2017, accused the Swedish government of doing nothing to obtain his release, in a voice message obtained by AFP on Tuesday.
Jalali’s remarks came following the recent release of Italian and German-Iranian hostages held by Iran.
On June 15, Tehran freed two Swedes, Johan Floderus, an EU diplomat who had been held in Iran since April 2022, and Saeed Azizi, who was arrested in November 2023, in exchange for Hamid Noury, a former Iranian prisons official serving a life sentence in Sweden.
But Jalali, whom Iran sentenced to death in 2017 on espionage charges and was granted Swedish nationality while in jail, was left out of the swap.
“The Swedish officials are informed about me but nothing has been done to improve my situation,” he said in a message given to AFP by his wife, Vida Mehrannia.
“It seems to not be a priority for the Swedish officials, what may happen to me as a Swedish citizen while I risk dying either by execution or due to poor health,” he said on Tuesday, his 53rd birthday.
“It seems that due to my dual nationality I am considered as a second-class citizen,” he said.
His remarks came as German-Iranian Nahid Taghavi was released from Tehran’s Evin prison and returned home on Sunday, just days after Iran released Italian journalist Cecilia Sala.
Western countries have for years accused Iran of detaining their nationals on trumped-up charges in a policy of state hostage-taking to use them as bargaining chips to extract concessions.
“We have repeatedly told Iran that the death sentence (against Jalali) must under no circumstances be carried out,” Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard told AFP.
The government has insisted that it tried to obtain Jalali’s release at the same time as Floderus and Azizi.
“Unfortunately Iran didn’t want to discuss him at all, they don’t recognize him as a Swedish citizen since he was only an Iranian citizen when he was arrested,” Stenergard said.