Human Lives Human Rights: Since 2019, the Swedish prosecutor’s office took into custody an Iranian man named Hamid Nouri, who is accused by the Swedish judicial authorities of being directly involved in the mass execution and torture of political prisoners in Iran in 1988.
But who is Hamid Nouri and what is his background?
Hamid Nouri was born in April 1961 in Tehran. He is a former judiciary employee. Nouri is accused of being the deputy to the prison’s lead prosecutor, Mohammad Moghiseh, in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj at the time of the 1988 executions.
Mr Nouri walked off the plane on 9 November 2019 and straight into custody. The Swedish police arrested him at the arrivals terminal of Stockholm Arlanda Airport.
In it’s first step, the Swedish prosecutor’s office issued a one-month detention order to complete the investigation. After a year and a half, Nouri’s trial sessions finally began on August 10, 2021.
The one-and-a-half-year interval itself – from Nouri’s arrest to his trial, has many ambiguities. Now the question is why investigation process and his interrogation has been so long? and basically in what circumstances the Nouri has undergone interrogation during this period?
In August 2021, Ahmad Masoumifar, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Kingdom of Sweden, wrote on his Twitter account: “After 20 days of follow-up I managed to meet the Iranian citizen in prison. There, I witnessed the violation of some articles of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights.”
Masoumifar wrote: “A complaint has been submitted by lawyers to the judicial authority and in a note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice, I have called for an independent investigation into violations of the prisoner’s rights, the obstruction of medical examination, desecration of faith and physical and mental torture of Iranian citizens.”
Swedish prosecutors have charged Hamid Nouri with violating international law and murder.
Hamid Nouri’s indictment:
- Participation in crimes against humanity
- Participation in war crimes
- Participating in the torture of political prisoners
Since last summer, more than seventy court hearings have been held. Many of the court witnesses are members of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO). Finally, in the last court hearings, the Swedish prosecutor ordered that Nouri be sentenced to life in prison.
Now the question arises as to how a country that is itself prosecuting Hamid Nouri for human rights violations, is committing human rights violations during the investigation of this person and has prevented Nouri from his legal rights as a prisoner.
Sweden also claims to be the substratum of human rights and annually awards the Nobel Peace Prize to world-renowned figures with outstanding human rights record. However, Hamid Nouri’s case proved well that the gap between Sweden’s words and actions as a country claiming human rights is very large.
