Swedish-Iranian to be executed by May 21 for spying: Report

ANKARA

Ahmad Reza Jalali, an Iranian-Swedish national sentenced to death for allegedly spying on behalf of Israel in Iran, will be executed by May 21, local media said Wednesday.

Jalali was sentenced to death on charges of "acts of spying on behalf of Israel in Iran and having a role in the killing of Iranian nuclear physicists," according to the Iranian Students News Agency that cited sources.

Jalali, a medical doctor and lecturer at the Karolinska Institute in the Swedish capital Stockholm, was arrested in Iran in April 2016. He was sentenced to death for providing information to the Israeli foreign intelligence agency and the decision was upheld by the Iranian Supreme Court in 2017.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry announced that it granted citizenship to Jalali, who was imprisoned in Tehran in 2018.

The announcement came shortly before the trial of Hamid Noury, a former Iranian prosecution official arrested by Swedish authorities on charges of "war crimes" and "deliberate murder."

Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Swedish envoy to protest “the baseless and fabricated accusations that the Swedish prosecutor made against Iran during Noury’s court case,” Iranian media reported earlier.

* Writing by Gozde Bayar