A Swedish-Iranian man was executed by Iran for his alleged role in a fatal 2018 attack on a military parade.
Habib Chaab founded a separatist Arab independence group in Iran’s southeastern Khuzestan province.
In 2020, he was kidnapped by Iranian agents in Turkey, after residing in exile in Sweden for a decade.
Tobias Billstrom, foreign minister of Sweden, stated that his government had urged Iran not to execute Chaab.
“The death penalty is an inhuman and irreversible punishment, and Sweden, along with the rest of the EU, condemns its use in all circumstances,” he stated.
Iran’s judiciary accused Chaab of commanding Harakat al-Nidal, also known as the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, which Iran claims is a terrorist organization responsible for attacks in the country’s southwest.
Tehran denies that the province’s substantial Arab minority has long complained of marginalization and discrimination.
In 2018, gunmen killed 25 Revolutionary Guard personnel and bystanders watching a military parade in Ahvaz.
According to reports, Chaab was lured to Istanbul to meet a woman before being abducted and smuggled into Iran in an operation orchestrated by a notorious Iranian crime boss based in Turkey.
Iranian officials have not supplied information regarding Chaab’s arrest. Once inside Iran, he appeared to confess involvement in the 2018 attack on Iranian state television. He was convicted of the capital offense of being “corrupt on earth.”
Prosecutors alleged that Chaab had been involved in assaults since 2005 “under the protection of two intelligence services, including the Mossad and Sapo,” which are Israel’s and Sweden’s respective intelligence agencies.
They said Saudi Arabia funded and supplied the group’s other commanders in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
Iran and Saudi Arabia reestablished diplomatic ties this year after seven years of animosity.
In recent years, Iran has detained dozens of Iranians with dual citizenship or foreign permanent residency, primarily on espionage and national security charges.
According to its judiciary, two additional dual nationals have been sentenced to death or executed on security charges this year.
In January, Iran executed 61-year-old British-Iranian Alireza Akbari for espionage for the United Kingdom, which he denied.
He claimed he was tortured and coerced into confessing to offenses he did not commit.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called his murder “a cruel and cowardly act carried out by a barbaric regime.
In April, Iran’s Supreme Court upheld 67-year-old German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd’s death sentence for his alleged 2008 involvement in a deadly mosque explosion, which he denies.
According to Amnesty International, his trial was “grossly unfair” and he was tortured.
According to rights organizations, the country executes more people annually than any other country except China.
