EU confirms official from Sweden detained in Iran

The European Union has confirmed that a Swedish man working for its diplomatic service has been detained in Iran for more than 500 days and vowed to work “relentlessly” to secure his release.

Johan Floderus, a 33-year-old official based in Brussels, was arrested in Tehran in April 2022 while on holiday.

He had visited Iran previously on official EU business without incident but was detained after going on holiday there with Swedish friends, they added.

Mr Floderus is believed to be held at Tehran’s Evin prison along with several other foreign nationals and Iranians with dual nationality or foreign permanent residency.

They include Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian-Swedish specialist in emergency medicine who was arrested in 2016 and sentenced to death the following year after being convicted of “corruption on Earth”.

Djalali’s family and human rights groups have said Iran is holding him as a “hostage” in an attempt to negotiate a swap for former Iranian judiciary official Hamid Nouri, who is serving a life sentence in Sweden.

Nouri was tried by a Swedish court under the principle of universal jurisdiction and found guilty in July 2022 of war crimes over what prosecutors said was his leading role in the mass executions of Iranian opposition supporters in 1988.

Read more: BBC News