In a statement issued on Saturday, the ministry said the Swedish citizen had been placed on its counter-espionage unit’s “list of suspects” due to certain “suspicious contacts and behavior” during multiple trips to the country.
The ministry did not identify the detainee.
The foreign citizen’s activities, contacts and trips to different Iranian cities (which were generally inconsistent with tourism purposes) had closely been under watch by the ministry’s professional counter-espionage agents from the moment of entry into Iranian borders until exit, the statement added.
The statement said the findings revealed that the Swedish citizen used to establish links with a number of European and non-European suspects, who were themselves being monitored in Iran, while adhering to professional safe communication and concealment techniques.
The individual once again entered Iran a few months ago, following the arrest of another European spy, on a mission to find out how the identity of the detained spy had been revealed and how much data had been collected from the arrestee by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, the statement added.
During that trip as well, Iranian intelligence forces monitored the Swedish citizen’s contacts during the entire mission. The foreign national was eventually taken into custody upon a judicial order when the process of gathering evidence was completed as the individual was trying to leave the country.
The suspect in question has a history of travelling to the Israeli-occupied territories prior to visits to Iran, the statement added.
“As repeatedly stated before, the Intelligence Ministry views the country’s security and the people’s calm as a red line for itself and responds to even the slightest violation of the country’s security borders firmly” and regardless of any hype.
The ministry said Sweden had so far supported several spies operating by proxy for the Israeli regime and had provided a safe haven for anti-Iran terrorists, and warned the European country that it would receive “a proportionate response” if it continued the practice of “providing proxy spies” and “sponsoring persistent-offense murderers.”
