Iran executes Swedish-Iranian linked to deadly 2018 attack

Iran has executed a Swedish-Iranian dissident convicted of leading an Arab separatist group accused of attacks including one on a military parade in 2018 that killed 25 people, state television reported.

Habib Farajollah Chaab, hanged on Saturday, had been sentenced to death for being "corrupt on earth", a capital offence under Iran’s strict Islamic laws.

In 2022, Iran started the trial of Chaab on charges of leading the separatist Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, which seeks a separate state in the oil-rich Khuzestan province in southwestern Iran, and plotting and carrying out "numerous bombings and terrorist operations".

Sweden had voiced concern over Chaab's case, and ties with Iran had also been soured over a Swedish court's life-time prison sentence for a former Iranian official for involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988 in the Islamic Republic.

Three dual nationals - including Chaab - have been sentenced to death or executed over security-related charges since the start of the year, according to the judiciary.

In January, Alireza Akbari, a former Iranian official with British citizenship who had been convicted of espionage, was executed .

In April, Iran's Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd, 67, over his connection with a deadly mosque bombing in 2008.

At least 16 Western passport holders, most of them dual nationals, are currently detained in Iran.

Tehran insists all have gone through a proper judicial process.