Tehran | Tehran has warned of “any interference” from Sweden after Stockholm called on the Islamic Republic not to execute an Iranian-Swedish scholar, Ahmadreza Djalali, sentenced to death in Iran for espionage.
“The judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran is independent. Any interference in the issuance or execution of judicial decisions is rejected as unacceptable, ”writes Iranian Foreign Affairs spokesperson Said Khatibzadeh in a statement released Tuesday evening.
Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on Twitter on Tuesday that she called her Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif following reports that Tehran was preparing to execute the execution of medical specialist Mr Djalali emergency.
“Sweden denounces the death penalty and is working to ensure that the sentence against Djalali is not applied,” she said.
For Mr. Khatibzadeh, the information from the Swedish authorities on “the situation of Mr. Djalali, imprisoned for having committed security crimes” is “incomplete and false”.
Mr Djalali, who worked at the Karolinska Institute, a faculty of medicine in Stockholm, was arrested during a visit to Iran in April 2016.
Found guilty of having transmitted to the Mossad (Israeli external intelligence) information on two persons in charge of the Iranian nuclear program who allowed their assassination between 2010 and 2012, he was sentenced to death.
Human rights organization Amnesty International called the judgment a “secret and hasty procedure that did not allow any presentation of the defense”, and Mr. Djalali’s appeals to have it quashed were dismissed. .
Believing that Iran had “not respected its international obligations” to give Mr. Djalali “a fair trial and the right to appeal,” four UN rapporteurs on human rights issues called Tehran in February 2018 to be canceled [sa] death sentence and release him ”.
Sweden granted him Swedish nationality to Mr Djalali in February 2018, but Iran does not recognize dual nationality.
The conviction of Mr Djalali also aroused emotion in Belgium, in particular within the Flemish University of Brussels (VUB, Vrije Universiteit Brussel) where he was a visiting professor.
Amnesty International on Tuesday called on the international community to “intervene quickly (…) to save the life of Ahmadreza Djalali before it is too late”.