Kamal Ghorui
STOCKHOLM: Sweden’s foreign minister on Wednesday said that Iran had executed a Swedish citizen, after Iranian authorities announced the first execution of a man convicted of spying since the start of its war against Israel and the United States.Maria Malmer Stenergard told AFP that she had learnt late Tuesday that the sentence was likely to be carried out.“We immediately contacted Tehran, of course, and I tried to arrange a meeting with my counterpart to ask him to immediately suspend the execution, but unfortunately, he was unavailable,” she told AFP.She did not identify the citizen who was executed.Earlier, Iran’s judiciary news agency Mizan Online said a man named Kouroush Keyvani was executed for spying for Israel, and that he was arrested during Iran’s 12-day war with Israel in June last year.It listed details of alleged meetings with agents from Israel’s Mossad spy agency and said he had received training in “six European countries and in Tel Aviv”.This was the first public announcement of such an execution since Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran on February 28, killing its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and triggering the war that has spread across the Middle East.The man had obtained Swedish citizenship in 2019. When asked about the reasons for his trip to Iran, Stenergard declined to comment. Since his arrest, “we have done everything in our power to try to change this situation. We have been in contact at various levels, both in Stockholm and in Tehran,” she said.– Access denied –Sweden had made several requests for consular access. “But Iran does not consider this person a Swedish citizen and therefore did not grant this access,” Stenergard said.“This has, of course, complicated our ability to obtain information,” she added.In a separate statement, she said she had received the news that the execution had been carried out with “dismay”.“It is obvious to us that the legal process which led to the execution of the Swedish citizen was not conducted in accordance with the rule of law,” she added in that statement.According to the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), two more people were hanged in 2026 following convictions for espionage: Ali Ardestani on January 7 and Hamidreza Sabet Esmailpour on January 28. The NGO documented at least 13 similar executions in 2025. During the 12-day war last year, a significant number of people were arrested, accused of spying for Israel. Major questions remain about the fate of prisoners currently held in Iran.“Recent statements by the head of the judiciary … have heightened concerns about the possible pronouncement and swift implementation of death sentences for espionage,” IHR warned. Iran has arrested hundreds of people in recent days suspected of collaborating with Israel and the United States, according to local media reports. On Sunday, police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan spoke of the arrest of 500 people suspected of espionage and of “passing information to the enemy and anti-Iranian media”. Another Swedish-Iranian, Ahmadreza Djalali, has been imprisoned in Iran for nearly 10 years. He was convicted in 2017 of collaborating with Mossad.
