Sweden’s Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal submitted to the court by Iranian prisoner Hamdi Nouri, upholding a life sentence verdict given to Nouri last year by the country’s Court of Appeal.
“The Supreme Court has now decided not to grant leave to appeal. This means that the judgment of the Court of Appeal stands,” the court said in a statement on Wednesday.
Nouri, a former Iranian judicial official, has been in prison in Sweden since November 2019, when he was arrested at a Stockholm airport based on complaints filed by notorious anti-Iran figures living in exile in the Nordic country.
He was sentenced to life in prison in 2022 after the Stockholm District Court found him guilty of murder and crimes against international law over his alleged role in executions of criminals in Iran in 1988. Sweden’s Appeal Court then upheld the verdict in December 2023.
The statement by Sweden’s Supreme Court came as lawyers and legal experts were expecting the court to set aside political considerations in the case and review it on legal grounds.
Iranian authorities say Nouri’s imprisonment and trial in Sweden is politically-motivated, saying the case has been influenced by pressure and propaganda of anti-Iran groups and individuals living in the West.
Nouri himself has vehemently denied the charges brought against him in the case while calling them fabricated.
Nouri’s lawyers have also documented numerous cases of violation of his rights during incarceration and trial in Sweden, including ill-treatment by prison officials which led to his hospitalization.
Lawyers have also questioned Sweden’s use of its principle of universal jurisdiction which has enabled its courts to work on the case.
The family of a Swedish national who faces death penalty in Iran for security-related charges have been pressing Stockholm to consider a prisoner swap with Tehran.
