Oman: Iran and Sweden complete prisoner exchange

Tehran: Iran and Sweden have completed a prisoner swap, according to the government of Oman, which mediated the process.

Citizens from both countries were flown to Muscat, the capital of the small state on the Persian Gulf, on Saturday.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson confirmed that two Swedish citizens were on their way home.

According to information from Tehran, Hamid N., who had been sentenced to life in prison in Sweden for mass executions of political prisoners in Iran at the end of the 1980s, was released. The Iranian, 63, was sentenced in Stockholm in July 2022.

There was no confirmation of this from Stockholm. Kristersson merely said that Iran had made the two Swedes “a pawn in a cynical negotiating game with the aim of releasing the Iranian citizen Hamid N.” from Swedish custody.

EU employees Johan Floderus and Said Asisi, who had been sentenced to five years in prison in Iran, were released by Tehran, Kristersson said. At least one other Swedish citizen, the physician Ahmad Resa Jalali, is still in an Iranian prison.

Relations between Sweden and Iran had recently cooled considerably due to the diplomatic cases. In May last year, Tehran executed a Swedish-Iranian dissident who had been accused of terrorist activities. Critics had repeatedly accused Iran of trying to free Hamid N. by imprisoning Swedish citizens.