Iran urges UN to hold Sweden accountable for illegal detention of official

A top Iranian rights official has urged the United Nations to hold the Swedish government accountable for the "illegal" detention and trial of an Iranian national, Hamid Nouri, while calling for his immediate release.

In a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kazem Gharibabadi, the Iranian judiciary chief’s deputy for international affairs and secretary of the High Council for Human Rights, expressed his “deep concern” about gross human rights violations committed by the Swedish authorities against Nouri.

“I request you to take all necessary measures to hold Sweden accountable and to prevent further violations and to secure the release of Mr. Nouri,” he said in the letter addressed to Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Nouri was arrested upon arrival at the Stockholm Airport in November 2019 and was immediately imprisoned on bogus charges.

He has been held in solitary confinement for over two years. Swedish prosecutors have requested the maximum penalty of life imprisonment for the former Iranian judiciary official, falsely accusing him of prisoner abuse in the 1980s.

The charges against Nouri stem from accusations leveled against him by members of the terrorist Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO). His accusers allege that he was involved in the execution and torture of MKO members in 1988. Nouri has vehemently rejected the charges.

In the letter, Gharibabadi noted that the “arbitrary arrest and illegal trial” of Nouri violates international agreements signed by Sweden.

He further stated that the Swedish prosecutor issued an arrest warrant against Nouri based on “unfounded statements made by several members of MKO terrorist group” without conducting comprehensive investigations.

The top rights official said the Iranian national was denied family visits.

He also noted that Nouri has been subjected to physical and mental torture, and kept in solitary confinement for more than 32 months even after a court lifted restrictions imposed on him.

Nouri, he hastened to add, has also been denied access to an ophthalmologist and severely beaten by Swedish police and stripped naked.

The MKO has been responsible for numerous assassinations and bombings of top-ranking Iranian officials since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks since the Islamic Revolution, about 12,000 have fallen victim to this group's acts of terror.

One of the biggest attacks carried out by the group was the 1981 bombing of the Islamic Republic Party’s headquarters in Tehran, which killed Iran’s then-judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohammad Hossein Beheshti, and 72 others, including lawmakers and ministers.

The group members fled Iran in 1986 to Iraq, where they enjoyed the patronage of former Iraqi military dictator Saddam Hussein.

The group, now based in Albania, was on the US government’s list of terrorist organizations until 2012. Since being delisted, the group leader Maryam Rajavi has forged close ties with western officials.

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