Iranian prosecutor demands death sentence for Swedish diplomat

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The trial of a jailed Swedish diplomat began in Tehran on Sunday with the prosecutor accusing him of "corruption on earth" and cooperation with Israel, and calling for the death penalty.

Johan Floredus is accused of “corruption on earth, extensive measures against the security of the country, and extensive cooperation with” Israel, the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online news agency reported.

The 33-year-old Swedish diplomat has been in an Iranian prison for over 600 days.

The prosecutor requested the court convict Floredus under Article 286 of the Iranian penal code and Article 6 of "The Act to Confront the Hostile Actions of the Zionist Regime against Peace and Security." Both carry the death penalty.

Floderus was arrested on April 17, 2022 at Tehran airport as he was returning to Iran and is being held at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.

The next trial date is unknown.

The European Union’s top foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday said "there are absolutely no grounds for keeping Johan Floderus in detention," and called for his immediate release.

In September, the European Union confirmed that Floderus had been held in an Iranian prison for over 500 days. A week later, Iran’s judiciary announced that he had been arrested for “committing crimes in the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

In May, Iran carried out the death sentence of dual Swedish-Iranian dissident Habib Farajollah Chaab. He had been charged with “terrorism” and “spreading corruption on earth.”

In its annual world report on global rights conditions for the year 2022 published in early January, Human Rights Watch accused Iran of conducting unfair trials and obtaining confessions under duress, as well as targeting dual and foreign nationals with vague accusations such as “cooperating with a hostile state.”

“Iranian courts, and particularly revolutionary courts, regularly fall far short of providing fair trials, and use confessions likely obtained under torture as evidence in court,” the report read.