Sweden expelled two Iranians for suspected role in a terrorist plot
On March 10, Sweden deported back to Iran two alleged Iranian agents who were arrested for links to a terrorist plot, instead of bringing them to justice.
According to documents seen by Iran International, the real identities of the two suspects were Fereshteh Sanai-Fari (female) and Mehdi Ramezani (male), who had entered Sweden with false names of Salma Khormai and Javad Malekshahi respectively.
The two, who entered Sweden in 2015 as refugees during the great flood of refugees to Europe, without any documents, had claimed that they were from Afghanistan and lied about their age.
Sweden’s security authorities arrested the female and male suspects in April 2021, but never revealed details of their crime. The only crime that is widely known is their false allegations during their interrogation of refugees and alleged “conspiracy to commit a criminal terrorist act.”
According to a report from IranWire, Sweden’s Deputy Chief Prosecutor Hans Ihrman said on Thursday that the two have been returned to Iran because the prosecutor’s office has not received the necessary documents from security authorities to prosecute them.
The United States also wanted the suspects, but according to Ihrman, the request to extradite the two had not arrived in time before they were deported back to Iran.
Swedish documents related to the two suspected deportees.
IranWire quoted an unnamed source as saying that “It appears that the security police did not provide all the information and documents to the prosecutor, who could not prosecute them without material evidence. The only option the prosecutor had was to request the dismissal. [of the case]. “
The Swedish Security Police said they had traveled to Europe as a sleeping cell for terrorism and said they were believed to be agents of the Islamic Republic who tried to carry out a terrorist attack on Iranian dissidents, apparently American citizens, but did not reveal the targets. name.
Finnish journalist Kambiz Ghafouri told Iran International that Sweden probably expelled them because they are already too busy with trials of similar cases as Hamid Noury (Nouri) and the Kia brothers for their previous crimes or links to Iranian intelligence and do not want more tensions in relations with Tehran.
Sweden is involved in another Iran-related case. Ghafouri said the Islamic Republic has bound the fate of Iranian-Swedish doctor Ahmadreza Djalali (Jalali) – who was arrested in 2016 by Iranian intelligence on vague allegations of espionage and was sentenced to death October 21, 2017 –to hand over by Iranian diplomat Asadollah Asadi – who was arrested in 2018 for the attempt to bomb an assembly of the opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) near Paris.
There is also the case of Stephen Kevin Gilbert and Simon Kasper Brown, two Swedish citizens accused of drug trafficking in Iran that the Islamic Republic wants to use in a prisoner exchange to get Nouri.
Nouri var was arrested in November 2019 when he visited Sweden and charged with war crimes for his role in the execution of up to 5,000 political prisoners in Iran who served their sentences in 1988.
Peyman Kia, now 41 years old and former head of the Swedish security police, and his brother Payam arrested late in 2021 in Sweden and charged with espionage.
Sweden has a large Iranian community consisting of past and present refugees, among them many anti-regime activists and human rights advocates.