Iran has executed a Swedish-Iranian dissident who went missing from a Turkish airport two years ago before turning up in Iranian custody accused of terrorism, state media reported on May 6.
Habib Chaab, a founder and former leader of a separatist group called the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), had been sentenced to death for being "corrupt on earth,” a capital offense under Iran’s strict Islamic laws.
Iranian officials accused Chaab of leading a "terrorist group" called Harakat al-Nidal and organizing and carrying out bombings and terrorist operations in the southwestern Khuzestan Province.
The group was blamed for a bomb attack on an annual military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz in 2018 that killed at least two dozen people and injured scores more.
The execution was carried out in Tehran, state media reported, after the Iranian Supreme Court upheld the death sentence on March 21.
At the time of the court ruling Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom blasted the death sentence, saying it was "an inhumane and irreversible punishment and that Sweden, together with the rest of the EU, condemns its use in all circumstances.”
Chaab, also known as Habib Asyud, went missing during a visit to Turkey in October 2020.
A month after his disappearance, he was shown in a video on Iranian state television in which he claimed responsibility for launching an attack and working with Saudi intelligence services.
Former prisoners and rights groups say Iran systematically uses torture and forced, televised confessions against alleged criminals and political detainees.
Iran's foreign minister at the time of the Ahvaz attack, Mohammad Javad Zarif, later blamed that bombing on foreign enemies and their "U.S. masters."
Chaab's former wife, Hoda Havashemi, told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda in January 2022 that she didn't believe he was involved in the Ahvaz bombing and feared he wouldn't get a fair trial.
She said Swedish authorities were not being granted access to Chaab. Iran does not recognize dual citizenship.
ASMLA is primarily based in the Netherlands and Denmark. Its leadership has been accused by Danish authorities of financing and promoting terrorism in Iran with Saudi Arabia's backing.
In late October 2018, the Danish intelligence service accused the Iranian intelligence service of plotting to assassinate at least one of the three leaders of the group's Danish branch, which Tehran denied.
In November 2017, a leader of the ASMLA was shot dead in The Hague in an attack that the Dutch government said was linked to Iran.