A Swedish-Iranian scientist sentenced to death in Iran on espionage charges might face execution as early as yesterday, human rights groups and his wife said.
An Iranian judge on Tuesday ordered that Ahmadreza Djalali be taken from Evin prison to Rajai Shahr prison, a normal preliminary to an execution. Death sentences in Iran are often carried out on Wednesday.
It would be one of the first executions of a dual national held in Iran and it comes a week after Iran released British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert in exchange for three Iranians accused of being part of a terror plot in Thailand.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Ahmadreza Djalali is at imminent risk of execution and only a strong and urgent reaction from the international community can save his life,” campaign group Iran Human Rights said.
“The judge overseeing the arbitrary killing reportedly said the family would be granted a last-minute visit before his execution. Unconscionable. And unlawful. Human lives just pawns in international politics, tit for tat, no end in sight,” UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Agnes Callamard said.
“I spoke to him a week ago and what he said would happen is taking place. He will be executed at some point tomorrow [Wednesday], unless someone intervenes. I am not a political person, but all I can ask is that countries that have influence, maybe Austria and the US, will ask Iran to open his door and cancel his sentence. I hope the media will help me,” Djalali’s wife, Vida Mehrannia, told the Guardian. “I cannot tell my children what is happening these past four years or explain. How do I explain this?”
There was no official Iranian reaction to the reports, but the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier rejected suggestions that it could intervene in cases of imprisoned dual nationals.
Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Ann Linde last week said that she had spoken to Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Javad Zarif after reports that Iran could soon carry out Djalali’s death sentence.
Djalali, a medical doctor and lecturer at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, was arrested in Iran in 2016 and later convicted of espionage for Israel, having been accused of providing information to Israel to help it assassinate several senior nuclear scientists.
Last month, 153 Nobel laureates signed a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asking for Djalali to be released.
Djalali had traveled to Iran at the official invitation of the University of Tehran, but was arrested by Iranian Ministry of Intelligence agents on April 24, 2016.
There have been reports that Iran had been hoping to trade his reprieve for the release of Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi, on trial in Belgium for allegedly taking part in a bomb plot.
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