Farajollah Cha’ab, also called Habib Asyoud, had been a frontrunner of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, an Arab separatist motion that has carried out oil pipeline bombings and different assaults in Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province.
That group had claimed the 2018 assault in its quick aftermath.
Cha’ab’s execution comes as a Swedish courtroom final 12 months sentenced an Iranian to life in jail over his half within the 1988 mass executions in Iran on the finish of its conflict with Iraq.
Tehran, which has used prisoners as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West, reacted angrily to that sentence.
Meanwhile, tensions additionally stay excessive between Iran and the West over its quickly advancing nuclear program as properly — and a minimum of another prisoner with Western ties faces a doable execution.
The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news company confirmed Cha’ab’s execution by hanging in a prolonged assertion.
It recognized him because the chief of the militant group and alleged with out offering proof that he had ties to Swedish, Israelis and US intelligence companies.
It accused his group of killing or wounding 450 folks over time, together with a number of assaults on authorities places of work and different websites.
It additionally included state tv interviews with Cha’ab, a function of many Iranian trials that activists lengthy have described as coerced confessions.
It additionally for the primary time clearly recognized Iranian intelligence officers as being behind Cha’ab’s abduction, saying that its “unknown soldiers” captured him in Turkey in November 2019.
Iran has used related ruses to seize its enemies overseas, together with the exiled journalist Ruhollah Zam who was executed in 2020.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom condemned Cha’ab’s execution.
“The death penalty is an inhumane and irrevocable punishment, and Sweden, together with the rest of the (European Union), condemns its use under all circumstances,” he stated in an announcement.
The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights individually condemned the execution, referring to Cha’ab’s closed-door trial as “grossly unfair”.
“This is an example of the Islamic Republic’s state terrorism,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the group’s director, stated.
“We expect that the EU and Swedish government show adequate reaction to the murder of their citizen.
“Killing a hostage should not be tolerated.”
Tensions already had escalated between Iran and Sweden over the life imprisonment of Hamid Noury, an Iranian convicted of committing grave war crimes and murder during the final phase of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
The end of the war saw mass executions of an estimated 5000 Iranian prisoners, including those from an exiled opposition group and others.
The 2018 attack in Iran targeted a military parade in Ahvaz in Khuzestan, the chaos captured live on state television.
Militants disguised as soldiers opened fire, killing at least 25 people and wounding over 60 others in the deadliest attack to strike Iran in years.
A spokesman for the separatist group claimed the assault shortly after in a televised interview.
The Islamic State group also claimed the attack, though it offered factually incorrect details about the assault.
In recent months, Iran has carried out other executions after the months of unrest over the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini following her arrest by the country’s morality police.
In January, Iran executed a former high-ranking defence ministry official and dual Iranian-British national accused of spying.
Also facing a possible execution is an Iranian-German national who lived in California, a man Iran describes as planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people and wounded over 200 others, as well as other assaults through the little-known Kingdom Assembly of Iran and its Tondar militant wing.
His family long has said he was captured by Iranian intelligence in Dubai.
Iran is one of the world’s top executioners.
Source: www.9news.com.au
