Sweden urges Iran to release dual national
Sweden's foreign minister on Friday urged Iran to release a dual national academic who has been held on death row in Tehran for nine years.
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Iranian-Swedish national Ahmadreza Djalali, 53, was sentenced in 2017 on a charge of spying for Israel. He had been arrested in 2016 while he was in Iran for a conference.
Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said he was being held in "very difficult conditions" and his poor health was worsening and a cause for concern.
"The Swedish government demands that Iran immediately release Ahmadreza Djalali on humanitarian grounds so he can be reunited with his family," she said in a statement.
She and the government were doing all they can to secure his release, she added in a message to Djalali's family.
Iran's ambassador to Sweden was called in about the detention last month.
In June last year, Swedes Johan Floderus -- an EU diplomat detained in Iran since April 2022 -- and Saeed Azizi, who was arrested in November 2023, were released in a prisoner swap with Iranian national Hamid Noury.
Noury, 63, is a former senior official in the Iranian prison service and was serving a life sentence in Sweden.
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Djalali was not included in the swap, which his wife, who lives in Stockholm, has criticised on several occasions.
The Swedish government maintains it did all it could to obtain his release at the same time as the two other prisoners but without success, as Tehran refuses to discuss his case, as it does not recognise his Swedish nationality.
The families of a number of Western or dual nationals being held in Iran, as well as NGOs and diplomats, accuse the Islamic republic of using them as bargaining chips.
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