Iran’s rights official: More prisoner exchange with US soon

Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights and deputy head of the Iranian Judiciary, told Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam news network on Wednesday that Tehran and Washington have agreed that some Iranian prisoners who have ‘unjustly and falsely’ been detained in the US for accusations, including sidestepping Western-imposed sanctions, will be released.

Gharibabadi added Iran will also release some prisoners who have dual American and Iranian citizenships.

The revelation comes as Iran and the US have made agreements in recent months including the one that saw five Americans released from Iranian prisons in exchange for freedom of several jailed Iranians and Tehran’s access to about $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue.

Meanwhile, the rights official had harsh words for Sweden for detaining Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian judiciary official sentenced to life in prison over rights abuse accusations.

He said Nouri’s detention is ‘illegal’ and ‘politically-motivated,’ explaining, “Nouri is neither a citizen of Sweden nor has he committed a crime.

The Islamic Republic of Iran regards Nouri’s arrest by the Swedish government as a kind of support for terrorism, as the terrorist group, Mujahedin Khalgh (MKO) is behind the issue.”

Gharibabadi also laid into the West for supporting the MKO, demanding that members of the anti-Iran terrorist group, who have the blood of over 17,000 Iranian civilians on their hands, be put on trial in open court sessions.

The Iranian official noted that Western states use members of the terrorist cult, who are ‘widely detested’ among Iranians, as a tool to reach their own goals.