Iran had already reported the arrest of a Swede last year. Since then, both countries have not given any information about his identity. As the EU foreign policy officer Borrell has now announced, it is an EU employee.
Almost a year and a half after the arrest of a Swede in Iran, the European Union’s foreign service has confirmed that the detainee is an employee.
The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on the fringes of a ministerial meeting in Cádiz, Spain, that in close coordination with the Swedish government, work was being done at all levels to get Johan Floderus released. Floderus has been unjustly detained in Iran for around 500 days.
Borrell thus confirmed one Report of the “New York Times” from Monday. According to the EU, Floderus was most recently a member of the Foreign Service team responsible for Afghanistan. Previously, he worked for the Swedish EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson, among others. According to NYT, Floderus is being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
Previously no information on the identity known
The Swedish government had previously said it had been calling for the release of a citizen detained in Iran since last year, but did not reveal his identity.
The Iranian secret service had already reported the arrest of the Swede last summer – also without providing information on his identity. It said only that the person had been arrested on espionage charges after she had been to the country several times as a tourist. The person was under surveillance.
At the time, the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs only said: “It is an existing consular case that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been working on for some time.”
Tensions between Sweden and Iran
Critics accuse Iran of “hostage diplomacy.” More than a dozen Western nationals, most of whom also have Iranian passports, are currently being held in Iran. This is not the case for the Swede.
Relations between Sweden and Iran are considered tense. Tehran is demanding that Sweden release national Hamid N., who has been sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in mass executions of political prisoners in Iran. In May, Iran’s judiciary executed a Swedish-Iranian dissident accused of terrorist activities.