State media in Iran
...The nation is noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence...
on Saturday reported the arrest of a Swedish national on spying charges.
"The Intelligence Ministry announced that a citizen of the Kingdom of Sweden was arrested on espionage charges," state news agency IRNA said.
"The suspect had been under surveillance by the Intelligence Ministry during several previous trips to Iran because of [their] suspicious behavior and contacts ... for visiting cities that were entirely outside of tourist destinations," the news agency quoted the ministry as saying.
Sweden's Foreign Ministry said it was aware of the case. "This is a known and ongoing case which the Foreign Ministry has been working on for a while," a spokeswoman said in an emailed comment to the Rooters news agency.
SWEDEN AND IRAN'S STRAINED RELATIONS
Relations between the countries have soured of late. Earlier this month, a Swedish court sentenced a former Iranian official to life in prison for participating in the 1988 mass killings of locked away
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
dissidents.
The conviction and sentence has led to fears of reprisals against Western prisoners held by the Islamic Theocratic
Republic.
Iran slammed the verdict, with the Foreign Ministry saying it was "politically motivated" and had "no legal validity."
Tehran summoned the Swedish charge d'affaires and handed him a note of protest.
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard has arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners in recent years, mostly on espionage and security-related charges.
Rights groups have accused the Islamic Theocratic
Republicof trying to win concessions from other countries through arrests on trumped-up charges. Tehran denies the accusations.
Iran said on Saturday it had arrested a Swedish national on allegations of espionage, without providing details on the suspect’s identity nor the date of their detention.
The statement said the suspect was in touch with several other figures in Iran, and has visited Israel, Iran’s foe. The statement accused Sweden of proxy spying for Israel.
In early May, the Swedish foreign ministry said a Swede in his 30s had been arrested in Iran.
It was not immediately clear if the announcement on Saturday referred to that man or another Swede.
"In all the previous trips, the suspect... communicated with a number of European and non-European suspects who were under surveillance in Iran," the statement read.
"The suspect in question re-entered the country a few months ago after the arrest of another European spy" to collect information, it alleged, adding the suspect had been taken into custody while leaving Iran.
The intelligence ministry said the suspect had visited Israel, the Islamic republic’s arch-enemy, before going to Iran.
It also alleged Sweden had "supported several proxy spies" for Israel, including Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian academic sentenced to death in the Islamic republic.
Djalali’s sentence was issued in 2017 after he was convicted of passing information about two Iranian nuclear scientists to Israel’s Mossad spy agency that led to their liquidations.
He was granted Swedish citizenship the following year.
His case was followed by the trial in Stockholm of Hamid Noury, a former official in Iran’s judiciary accused of war crimes over the killing of prisoners in Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites....during the 1980s.
Noury received a life sentence from a Swedish court on July 14. Iran dismissed the verdict as "political" and has called for his release.