TEHRAN: Iranian authorities have accused a Swedish EU diplomat, held in a Tehran prison for more than 600 days, of conspiring with Israel to harm Iran, the judiciary said.
“Johan Floderus is accused of extensive measures against the security of the country, extensive intelligence cooperation with the Israeli regime, and corruption on earth,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online news agency said.
Corruption on earth is one of Iran’s most serious offenses, which carries a maximum penalty of death.
“The defendant has been active against Iran in the field of gathering information for the benefit of the Israeli regime in the form of subversive projects,” Mizan quoted the prosecution as saying.
Earlier Sunday, the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called for the immediate release of the Swedish diplomat, arguing “there are no grounds for keeping Johan Floderus in detention.”
FASTFACT
The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has called for the immediate release of the Swedish diplomat, arguing ‘there are no grounds for keeping Johan Floderus in detention.’
Floderus, 33, works for the EU diplomatic service.
He was arrested on April 17, 2022, at Tehran airport as he was returning from a trip abroad and is being held in Tehran’s Evin Prison.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said on Saturday the trial had begun in Iran.
“There is no basis whatsoever for keeping Johan Floderus in detention, let alone bringing him to trial,” Billstrom said.
Rights groups and Western governments have accused Iran of trying to extract political concessions from other countries through arrests on security charges that may have been trumped up.
Tehran says such arrests are based on its criminal code, and it denies holding people for political reasons.
Relations between Sweden and Iran have been tense since 2019, when Sweden arrested a former Iranian official for his part in the mass execution and torture of political prisoners in the 1980s.
