General

Iran envoy officially complains over Nouri verdict

Tehran, IRNA – Iranian Ambassador to Sweden Ahmad Masoumifar has officially complained over Swedish court’s verdict against Iranian citizen Hamid Nouri.

“In today’s meeting with Mr. Robert Rydberg, State Secretary of the Swedish MFA, I submitted an official note reiterating our strong objection to the strange decision of a district court to issue a statement against Iran scattered with baseless allegations,” Masoumifar wrote on his Twitter account on Friday.

Earlier, Iranian foreign ministry summoned Sweden’s charge d’affaires in protest at a Swedish court’s sentencing of an Iranian citizen Hamid Nouri to life imprisonment on the basis of unfounded allegations leveled against him by the anti-Iran terrorist MKO group.

Hamid Nouri, who has been in solitary confinement in Sweden since 2019, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Sweden on Thursday.

Nouri was arrested by Swedish police in late 2019 on baseless allegations against him by the MKO terrorist group.

Speaking at a phone conversation with his family in late June, Nouri had complained that the restrictions on him had been increased while it was more than 50 days after his final trial and he was waiting for the verdict of the court.

He said that all his contacts with his family has been cut and he had only been able to have two short phone calls with his family.

These two phone calls were even strictly controlled in the presence of an interpreter, he added.

Nouri said that although he was suffering from eye problems, he had no access to optometrist.

He also talked about his physical torture in the Swedish prison as he said three police officers had beaten him up severely at the head and the ears so that his ears were still aching.

Nouri had complained that he was being kept at solitary confinement for two years and eight months while no human rights body had followed up his case.

In a mid-July letter to the United Nations high commissionaire on human rights Michelle Bachelet, the secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights Kazem Gharibabadi, gave an explanation of Nouri’s situation and expressed grave concern over the violation of his human rights.

Gharibabadi said that Sweden’s treatment of Nouri constituted a violation of several international treaties, conventions, and law on human rights.

The Iranian official called on Bachelet to hold Sweden accountable, prevent continuation of human rights violations, and make efforts to release Nouri, and compensate him for damages.

Source: Islamic Republic News Agency – IRNA