Attempts to convince Iranian courts to review the death sentence given to an academic convicted of spying for Israel have failed, according to the man’s lawyer, who says the sentence is now “definitive”.
Iranian emergency specialist Ahmadreza Djalali, who is a resident in Sweden, was arrested during a trip to the Islamic republic in April 2016. He was found guilty in October 2017 of passing information about Iranian nuclear scientists to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.
The sentence was met with protests by Amnesty International, the UN and Sweden’s Foreign Ministry. An initial appeal was rejected in December, and his lawyer now says a further request to have the sentence overturned has been denied.
“This time the sentence is definitive. It has been confirmed that the death penalty can be carried out, and it can happen at any time,” Djalali’s lawyer Zouhaier Chihaoui told Le Soir, condemning the legal process in Iran as unjust.
The Swedish branch of Amnesty International said it has not received information about the death sentence being confirmed.
“But we heard from Djalali’s wife on Friday that a decision would probably be announced tomorrow (Monday), and the lawyer wasn’t optimistic. This is in line with that,” Maja Åberg from Amnesty told news agency TT.
Amnesty had hoped the judgment against Djalali would be overruled, she said. The Swedish Foreign Ministry said it too had not received any information about the court’s decision.
Last week a further person was sentenced to six years in prison for spying in Iran, having allegedly sold information about the country’s nuclear energy program to the US and EU, according to the Iranian legal authority.
Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolotabadi claims the person met US and EU agents on nine occasions and gave them information “about sanctions and nuclear matters” in exchange for money.
Source » thelocal