Ahmad Reza Jalali's wife: He is just a victim
Vida Mehrannia, the wife of Ahmad Reza Jalali, tells Deutsche Welle that there is no evidence to support her husband's case. Independent journalist Kambiz Ghafouri also says that the Islamic Republic proposed exchanging Jalali for Asadollah Asadi about two years ago.
Ahmad Reza Jalali, a physician and specialist in emergency medicine who has been in prison since 2016, was transferred to solitary confinement on Tuesday, December 25, to carry out his death sentence.
He announced the news in a phone call to his family, saying that this call might be his last.
Vida Mehrannia, Mr. Jalali's wife, told Deutsche Welle: "Yesterday, Ahmad Reza called and said that they were taking him to Evin quarantine and from there to Rajai Shahr in Karaj to carry out the sentence. He said that he might not be able to call again and asked me to follow up on his situation."
Some reports indicate that the Islamic Republic has offered to exchange the researcher for Asadollah Asadi, an Iranian diplomat imprisoned in Belgium. Asadi is on trial for his involvement in a plot to bomb a rally of the People's Mojahedin in Paris.
Independent journalist Kambiz Ghafouri wrote on Twitter about 10 days ago that he had heard this news from two sources.
He told DW that in early 2019, on the sidelines of an EU meeting, he heard from two diplomats that the Islamic Republic had offered to swap Assad for Jalali, but neither Sweden nor Belgium had accepted the offer.
Ahmadreza Jalali traveled to Iran in May 2016 at the invitation of the University of Tehran, but was arrested and taken to prison. Following the announcement of charges of “warring against Israel through espionage,” the researcher was sentenced to death.
The Tehran prosecutor accused Ahmadreza Jalali of “transferring information related to the regime’s top-secret projects in the fields of research, military, defense, and nuclear energy in exchange for receiving payments along with Swedish citizenship for himself and his family.”
The death sentence of this dual-national prisoner was confirmed by the Supreme Court in December 2017.
Ahmadreza Jalali has always denied this accusation and said that the confessions taken from him in this regard were made under severe pressure and cannot be relied upon legally.
Several months after his arrest, Mr. Jalali wrote in a letter from prison that the charges “were never communicated to me, neither in writing nor even verbally. Rather, the interrogators stated, ‘You are a traitor and have no rights! Everything that is done for you is just kindness and mercy on our part.’”
Ahmad Reza Jalali's letter also stated that his young children had been "threatened with arrest and harassment" and that he had not been allowed to contact his children "for 21 days" in order to "inform" him that they had been arrested.
Ahmadreza Jalali and Vida Mehrannia have an 18-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son who live with their mother in Sweden.
Demands and expectations from the Swedish government
A group of Iranians living in Sweden, as well as Iranian opposition groups, have called on the Swedish government to try to stop Mr. Jalali’s execution. Three organizations, including the Iranian Left Party (Fedayeen Khalq), the Iranian Fedayeen Khalq Organization (Majority), and the Iranian Republican Union in Sweden, have written a letter to the country’s Foreign Minister, demanding that the ministry “take the necessary and necessary steps to prevent this inhumane act by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
On Tuesday, after the announcement of Mr. Jalali's imminent execution, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde wrote on Twitter that she had spoken to her Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to express the Swedish government's concerns about the issue.
Source: DW
