European Union representative Enrique Mora said on Friday (May 13th) he urged Iran to release death row Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali during a visit to Tehran to relaunch Iran nuclear talks.
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During his visit to Tehran, Enrique Mora, European Union negotiator in charge of coordinating the Iranian nuclear talks, met on Wednesday and Thursday with Iran's chief negotiator Ali Bagheri, according to state media.
Iran has been engaged for a year in direct negotiations with the major powers to relaunch the Vienna agreement concluded in 2015 on its nuclear program, but from which Washington withdrew unilaterally in 2018. On Friday, Enrique Mora indicated that he had also discussed during his visit the case of Ahmadreza Djalali while his execution should take place no later than May 21, according to the Isna news agency.
"
I expressed to Tehran the need not to execute #AhmadrezaDjalali and asked for his release on humanitarian grounds
",
The emergency medicine researcher, who was based in Stockholm where he worked for the Karolinska Medical Institute, was arrested during a visit to Iran in 2016. Accused of passing on to Mossad -- the Israeli intelligence services -- information on two officials of the Iranian nuclear program, which would have allowed their assassination between 2010 and 2012, Ahmadreza Djalali had been sentenced to death in 2017. In February 2018, while in detention, Sweden granted him Swedish nationality.
In March 2021, UN human rights experts called on Tehran to release Ahmadreza Djalali, denouncing "
cruel and inhuman treatment
".
Read alsoTwo French people arrested in Iran, Paris calls for their “immediate release”
Refusal to exchange prisoners
The announcement in early May of his imminent execution came on the last day of the trial of Hamid Noury, a former Iranian prison official, tried in Stockholm since August 2021 for "
crimes against humanity
", war crimes, and for the execution of a large number of prisoners in Iran in the 1980s. Prosecutors have requested life imprisonment for Hamid Noury, who is expected to be sentenced in July.
Iran has denounced the "
illegal
" arrest and trial of Hamid Noury and called for his release.
Iranian justice has ruled out any exchange between Hamid Noury and Ahmadreza Djalali.
Shortly after the end of Hamid Noury's trial, Sweden reported the arrest in Iran of one of its nationals.
Two French people were also arrested in Iran, the French Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, condemning an "
unfounded
" arrest and calling for their "
immediate release
".