An Iranian Swedish citizen was executed in Iran on Saturday on charges of terrorism, Iran International reported.
Habib Farajollah Chaab was accused of leading a separatist group and found guilty of plotting and carrying out “terrorist” acts in relation to a 2018 incident.
According to the Iranian authorities, militants of the group disguised as soldiers opened fire on an annual military parade in Ahwaz, the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan in September 2018.
At least 25 people were killed, including a four-year-old boy, and 70 were injured in the attack for which Iran holds the separatist group and the Saudi Arabian and Israeli intelligence services responsible.
Chaab was kidnapped from Turkey in 2020 by a group working for Tehran, who smuggled him back to Iran, where he was sentenced to death for being “corrupt on Earth”, a capital offence under the country’s strict Islamic laws.
The dissident was in Turkey for only 24 hours before being abducted in a cross-border operation that reportedly involved a honey-trap set by a female Iranian spy, according to Turkish authorities.
A few days after his kidnapping, Chaab appeared on Iranian state television making a confession of involvement in terrorist acts, which his friends claimed was taken by coercion.
Chaab’s execution has led to renewed tensions between Iran and Sweden, which had already been strained following a Swedish court’s decision to hand down a lifetime prison sentence to a former Iranian official for involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988.
The Swedish government had called for Chaab’s execution not to be enforced, recalling the EU common position that condemns all use of the death penalty, wherever it is applied.
Iran has executed at least 199 people in the first four months of 2023, according to the data of the Iranian Human Rights Organisation.
Of the 199 people executed, 51 were Kurdish, 42 were citizens of Baluch, and 31 were unidentified.