Sweden: Siltanews – News Desk
Over 20 foreign nationals who themselves endured years of captivity in Iran on Wednesday urged Sweden to step up efforts to free a Swedish-Iranian citizen sentenced to death in the country, after he had a heart attack last week.
Ahmadreza Djalali, an academic who was sentenced to death in 2017 on espionage charges he denies, suffered a heart attack in Tehran’s Evin prison, his wife said Friday.
Djalali, 53, is among a number of Europeans held by Iran in what some countries including France call a deliberate hostage-taking strategy to extract concessions from the West at a time of tension over Tehran’s nuclear programmer.
Djalali’s condition, “worsened by years of medical neglect and psychological torment, is now dire,” said the 21 former detainees including British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert and US-Iranian Siamak Namazi, who were freed only after years-long ordeals in prison.
“While the Islamic Republic and its heinous practice of hostage diplomacy is the clear culprit here, we are deeply troubled by your government’s failure to use the means at its disposal to rescue Dr Djalali,” they said in the letter addressed to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson via Stockholm’s embassy in Washington.
“No more empty statements. Sweden must act with the same urgency and resolve it has shown in securing the freedom of other citizens,” they added in the letter seen by AFP.