Tuesday , 19 March 2024

Iranian Convicted Of 1992 Murder Of Dissidents Calls For Pressure On Sweden To Release Nouri

RFL/RE – Kazem Darabi, an Iranian sentenced to life in prison over the 1992 murder of four Iranian dissidents, has called on President Ebrahim Raisi to pressure the Swedish government for the release of former Iranian official Hamid Nouri, who is on trial in Stockholm over the 1988 mass execution of political prisoners.

Kazem Darabi, an Iranian sentenced to life in prison over the murder of four Iranian dissidents (file photo)

In an interview with the hard-line Fars news agency, Darabi, who was released in 2007 after serving 15 years in prison in Germany, claimed Nouri, an alleged former deputy prosecutor and member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was put on trial with “no logic nor evidence.”

Nouri is charged with international war crimes and human rights abuses in connection with the murders of more than 100 people at a prison in Karaj.

Swedish prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for Nouri, who has been held in custody in Sweden since his arrest in Stockholm in November 2019. The Stockholm District Court has said that a verdict in the case is expected on July 14.

Tehran has threatened to execute Swedish-Iranian national Ahmadreza Djalali, who is currently being held in Iran and is accused of spying for Israel.

Iranian officials have claimed that the two cases, which have strained relations between Sweden and Iran, are not related.

Darabi whose case sparked a diplomatic crisis between Berlin and Tehran, said the trial with Nouri and other similar court proceedings, are to put “the Islamic republic on trial.”

Iran’s clerical establishment has been accused of having threatened and assassinated dozens of political opponents outside the country.

Iranian officials have denied the accusations.

After the trial of Darabi and four others that lasted more than 3 years, a German court in 1997 concluded that Iranian government was “directly involved” in the 1992 killings of three top members of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) and one of their supporters at the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin.

Darabi who had worked as a grocer in Berlin and has steadfastly claimed his innocence, was identified as an agent of the Iranian government who organized the killings.

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