Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said Dawit Isaak should be freed immediately, saying his situation “is a tragedy.”

Last week, the European Parliament unanimously condemned his detention and called for a fair trial by an independent court. Isaak was imprisoned after demanding press freedom.

Isaak fled to Sweden in 1987 as a war refugee but returned to Eritrea in the 1990s to work for an independent newspaper. He was arrested and imprisoned without trial on Sept. 18, 2001, among several journalists.