Iran again plays sinister game with doctor sentenced to death | Abroad

A sinister power game has been going on around Djalali (50) for years in which Iran tries to exchange the professor for Hamid Nouri, among others, who has been detained by Sweden. This former Iranian prosecutor is partly responsible for the mass executions in Iran in 1988 when between 2800 and 3800 people died. Most of these came from the left-wing resistance to the regime of the then religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini.

Iran is apparently worth the release of this Nouri. The regime in Tehran is now notorious for falsely arresting foreigners – preferably with dual nationality – in order to later extort concessions or money from mostly Western countries. This Iranian ‘hostage diplomacy’ has often been denounced in the circles of human rights organizations. In 2016, an American-Iranian journalist was arrested, convicted by Iran and then exchanged for seven Iranians detained in the United States.

According to Amnesty spokesman Elke Kuijper, Ahmedreza Djalali also seems to have been arrested mainly to put pressure on the release of former prosecutor Nouri. Djalali specializes in disaster medicine and was arrested in 2016 during a working visit in his home country. At the end of October 2017, he was sentenced to death after an unfair trial. He was forced to confessions through psychological torture and spent the first three months of his detention in solitary confinement, Amnesty said. His lawyer was not allowed to visit him until seven months after his arrest.

Djalali is alleged to have provided information to Israel as a spy that could have eliminated Iranian nuclear scientists. Amnesty International received a letter from Djalali in 2018 in which he said he was being detained because he refused to spy for the Iranian government.

Elke Kuijper has been following the case for years and this week had contact with colleagues who have contact with the scientist’s wife. She has not been able to call her husband directly for over a year. That goes through. Djalali is only allowed to call relatives who live in Iran. They decided that they would put two telephones together so that his wife could hear him. Djalali worked as a guest lecturer for the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, which is why Belgium also has a link, because Iran is also trying to get a former top official released here.

Kuijper: “Both Sweden and Belgium have indicted Iranian officials for human rights violations. Iran therefore seeks an exchange with those countries. Djalali is not doing well. His health is not good. He is in pain and is not getting the medical care he needs. He has lost a lot of weight. He is also not doing well psychologically, but we do not know exactly how he is doing now. I understand that he was not put in isolation. Those are usually signs that an execution is imminent. But we can’t really confirm that.”

The Iranian game with the death penalty has been played before. Djalali would also be executed in November 2020. That threat was directly related to the lawsuits at the time in Belgium and Sweden against Iranian suspects. Djalali was then placed in solitary confinement. There were many solidarity actions worldwide and his execution was postponed. Kuijper: ,,There are links with previous cases in which money was eventually paid for the release of people. Iran does this more often and probably doesn’t shy away from actually executing people. Of course I hope he is not executed, but Djalali should also be released because he has basically done nothing wrong. It is difficult to look ahead because in Iran a human life is not worth that much in such a game.”

According to insiders, the chance of an exchange that Iran wants is not so great because of the legislation here. There is lobbying and action by the Swedish and Belgian authorities to get Djalali released.