Iranians sentence Sweden’s life sentence for Iranian citizens
Yusef Jalali
Press TV, Tehran
Illegal and politically motivated – this is how these angry protesters describe a Swedish court ruling that sentences the Iranian citizen Hamid Nouri to life imprisonment for having participated in the killing of imprisoned dissidents.
Nouri is a former court staffer who was convicted by the Stockholm District Court on July 14 for taking part in the 1988 execution of members of the anti-Iranian terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, while serving as an assistant to the prosecutor at the Gohardasht prison outside the Iranian city of Karaj.
Protesters here warned that the Swedish verdict has sent negative signals to Iranians. The Swedish legal system does not have jurisdiction over the Nouri case, as he has not committed an international crime. The accusations were leveled against Nouri by members of the terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MKO.
Protesters here say MKO himself has committed countless war crimes, from helping former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war to the serial killings of Iranian statesmen and civilians in the first years after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
MKO was on the US and EU blacklist of terrorist organizations before both countries delisted the group in 2012 and 2009 respectively.
Iran says that Hamid Nouri has been kept in abysmal conditions in solitary confinement in Sweden for the past 32 months.
Hamid Nouri was arrested on arrival in Sweden at Stockholm Airport in 2019 and was immediately detained.
A life sentence in Sweden generally means at least 20 to 25 years in prison. Nouri can appeal the verdict.
Protesters here call the whole of shebang a political game aimed at tarnishing the Iranian legal system. They describe the Swedish verdict as rabble-rousing that testifies to terrorism and gives the green light to MKO’s bad intentions against Iranians.