By AFP – Agence France Presse
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The wife of an Iranian-Swedish academic on death row in Iran since 2017 said Tuesday she was “very disappointed” after meeting Sweden’s foreign minister to pressure him to secure her spouse’s release.
Ahmadreza Jalali, a professor of medicine who holds dual citizenship, was arrested in Iran in 2016 and sentenced to death on espionage charges, accusations his family say are utterly baseless.
The doctor, who remains under threat of execution, began a hunger strike on June 26.
“They told me they are following the case,” spouse Vida Mehrannia said after she and her daughter met Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom.
“They didn’t clarify anything,” she said. “I’m very disappointed.”
On June 15, Tehran freed two Swedes, Johan Floderus, an EU diplomat who had been held in Iran since April 2022, and Saeed Azizi, who was arrested in November 2023, in exchange for Hamid Noury, 63, a former Iranian prisons official serving a life sentence in Sweden.
But Jalali, who was granted Swedish nationality while in jail, was left out of the swap.
“His pulse is very weak. His blood pressure is low. He is suffering from multiple illnesses,” his wife told reporters in front of a small crowd who came to support her.
The group chanted “free Jalali” and accused Sweden of kowtowing to Iran by allowing a “dictator” to impose the terms of his release.
Stockholm insists it has done everything in its power to free Jalali in the June prisoner swap, but Tehran refuses to discuss his case, as the country does not recognise dual nationality.
Sweden’s foreign minister said he “deeply empathises with the Jalali family’s hopelessness”.
“But I don’t want to get into the specifics of what was said in the meeting,” he added.
“I hope Sweden responds, after eight years and three months,” Mehrannia said, vowing to keep “fighting” for her husband’s release.
In May, Iran hanged another Swedish-Iranian, Habib Chaab, on a terrorism conviction, drawing strong condemnation from Sweden.
Iran executes more people yearly than any other nation except China, according to human rights groups including Amnesty International.
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