Sweden and Iran swapped prisoners on Saturday, with Sweden releasing a former Iranian official convicted for his role in a mass murder in the 1980s, while Iran freed two Swedish citizens held there, officials said.

Oman’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the prisoner swap was brokered by Oman. “As a result of Oman’s efforts, both sides agreed on a mutual release, as the released prisoners were transferred from Tehran and Stockholm,” the statement said.

Sweden released former Iranian official Hamid Nouri, convicted for his role in the mass murder of political prisoners in Iran in 1988. Iran’s official IRNA news agency published footage of Nouri arriving at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport, where his family welcomed him on a red carpet.

Meanwhile, Swedish citizens Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi, who were detained in Iran, were released and sent back to Sweden, where they arrived late Saturday night.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said both were in good condition considering the circumstances and had been returned to their families.

“Iran used them both as pawns in a cynical negotiation game aimed at securing the release of Iranian citizen Hamid Nouri from a Swedish prison, who was convicted of serious crimes committed in Iran in the 1980s,” Christersen said in a statement.

“As prime minister, I have a special responsibility for the safety of Swedish citizens. The government has therefore worked intensively on this issue together with the Swedish security services, who negotiated with Iran.”

war crimes

Nouri, 63, was arrested at Stockholm airport in 2019 and later sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes for the mass execution and torture of political prisoners at Gohardasht prison in Karaj, Iran, in 1988. He denies the charges.

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman described Nouri as a hostage in a statement to local media and said he was being held “due to an illegal decision by a Swedish court that lacks legitimacy.”

Nouri told reporters that his case was complicated and sensitive. “They said even God could not free Hamid Nouri, but he did,” he told reporters upon arriving in Iran.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of groups opposed to Iran’s Islamic Republic government, said Sweden appeared to have succumbed to blackmail and hostage-taking tactics, which would encourage Tehran.

Kenneth Lewis, a lawyer representing a dozen plaintiffs in the Nouri case in Sweden, said his clients had not been consulted and were “shocked and dismayed” by Nouri’s release.

“This is an insult to the entire justice system and to everyone who participates in these trials,” he told Reuters.

Lewis said his client sympathised with the Swedish government’s efforts to repatriate its citizens, but that Nouri’s release was “totally incongruous”.

‘hell on earth’

EU employee Floderus was arrested in Iran in 2022 and accused of spying for Israel and “corruption on earth,” a crime punishable by death.

Saeed Azizi, a Swedish-Iranian dual citizen, was arrested in Iran in November 2023, after being arrested by Sweden on “false grounds”.

At a press conference held late in the night, Christerson appealed that the couple should now be allowed to spend time alone with their families.

“These are two people who have experienced hell on earth,” he said. “I understand how this is taken with mixed feelings, especially among Swedes who come from Iran. It was not an easy discussion that the government had to have, but sometimes you have to do the difficult thing and do what is right,” Kristersson said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the release of two Swedish citizens from “unjust Iranian detention” and congratulated Sweden for freeing them.

Ahmadreza Jalali, another Swedish-Iranian dual citizen arrested in 2016, is still in an Iranian prison. Jalali, an emergency medicine doctor, was arrested in 2016 during an academic trip to Iran.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said Iran also refused to recognise Djalali as a Swedish citizen, even though he had received citizenship of the Nordic country, where he lived and worked before his arrest while in an Iranian prison.

“I would like to tell Jalali and her family that the security services made a lot of efforts to make her husband and father part of today’s operation,” Billstrom said.

“There is no doubt that we will continue to work tirelessly to bring citizens like Jalali back home,” Billstrom said.