Swedish Diplomat After Release from Islamic Republic Prison: 'I Am in the Seventh Heaven'

Johan Flodros, a Swedish citizen, who was released from prison in Iran on Saturday during a swap with Hamid Nouri, told the Prime Minister of Sweden while on the plane returning to his country that he feels he is in 'the seventh heaven.' On Saturday, June 16, Sweden exchanged Hamid Nouri, a former deputy warden of Gohardasht Prison and involved in the mass execution of political prisoners in the 1980s, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Stockholm Supreme Court, for two of its citizens who were imprisoned in Iran. Reuters reported that Johan Flodros, while crossing the Iranian border on Saturday, said in a recorded phone call with Ulf Kristersson, the Prime Minister of Sweden, which was published on the Swedish government website on Sunday, June 17, that 'I am in the sky; but emotionally I see myself in the seventh heaven. I waited nearly 800 days for the moment of flight and return to Sweden.' Flodros, who works for the European Union's diplomatic service in Brussels and had traveled to Iran for tourism, was arrested in Iran in April 2021 and accused of espionage for Israel and 'corruption on earth,' a crime that carries the death penalty under the Islamic Republic's laws. He said on Saturday that he had repeatedly dreamed of his freedom: '... but then I would wake up and see myself on that damn concrete ground. Now that I have exited Iranian airspace and am on my way back home, that feeling is diminishing.' Kristersson, in a radio interview with Swedish Radio early Sunday, rejected criticism from the wife of Dr. Ahmadreza Jalali, a dual Swedish-Iranian citizen and university professor in Sweden who is at risk of execution, saying: 'I understand his disappointment and respect him, but I do not understand his criticism. Our other option was to leave the two Swedes who have now returned home in Iran.' Ahmadreza Jalali, a physician and university professor in Sweden, was arrested by intelligence agents while attending a scientific conference in Iran in May 2016. The Tehran prosecutor issued a death sentence for him on October 24, 2017. Jalali remains imprisoned in Iran after Tehran refused to include him in the recent prisoner exchange. The release and return of Hamid Nouri has sparked widespread reactions among Iranian social media users. Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, described Nouri's release as 'handing over a criminal to the Islamic Republic,' which 'threw dust on the half-baked face of justice that existed in the world.' Nouri's return to Iran in exchange for two Swedish hostages continues the Islamic Republic's 'hostage diplomacy.'