Iran angry with Sweden for granting citizenship to ‘Israeli spy’

Tehran has summoned Sweden’s ambassador over his country’s decision to grant citizenship to Ahmad Reza Jalali, an alleged Mossad spy. 

By: World Israel News and AP

Sweden has granted citizenship to an Iranian scientist who was sentenced to death in the Islamic Republic for the crime of spying for Israel, sparking Tehran’s rage.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency says the foreign ministry has summoned Sweden’s ambassador over the Nordic country’s decision to grant citizenship to the researcher, Ahmad Reza Jalali.

Tuesday’s report says the ministry summoned Ambassador Helena Sangeland on Monday to protest the granting of citizenship to Jalali, calling the move “unconventional, question-posing and unfriendly.”

Iran does not recognize dual nationality.

Jalali, arrested in April 2016 as he was in the country for a visit, was shown on state TV in December confessing to providing information to Israel’s Mossad spy agency about Iranian military and nuclear scientists, including two who were assassinated in 2010.

Rights groups have condemned Jalali’s detention, saying it follows a pattern of Iran detaining dual nationals and expatriates indefinitely without due process.

The 45-year old scientist, a husband and father of two children, ages 5 and 14, works as a medical professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), a Dutch-speaking university in Brussels, Belgium.

Amnesty said Jalali wrote a letter from inside prison in August stating he was being held for refusing to spy for Iran.