Ahmadreza Djalali

Ahmadreza Djalali is a dual Swedish-Iranian national who was a physician crisis management researcher working at the Karolinska Institutet, a medical university near Stockholm. Ahmadreza had travelled to Iran at the official invitation of the Universities of Tehran and Shiraz to participate in a crisis management workshop when he was arrested in April 2016.

He was transferred to Ward 209 of Evin Prison where he spent three months under physical and psychological torture to extract confessions.

In an audio file that was leaked from inside Evin Prison in recent years, Ahmadreza addressed the alleged charges of espionage: “I have never said that I collaborated with Mossad. The only meeting I had with Mr Alimohammadi and Mr Shahriari was in 2002, and the entire meeting did not last more than three or four minutes. I have not had any direct cooperation in any of the Ministry of Defence projects since 2004, and in principle, the Ministry of Defence does not allow anyone who has been living abroad since 2008 to participate in its projects.” Ahmadreza has spent more than nine years on death row, during which he has been transferred to the gallows to exert pressure on Western countries in Iran’s hostage diplomacy.

Charges: "Efsad-fil-arz (corruption on earth) through espionage for Israel.”

Status: Sentenced to death by the Tehran Revolutionary Court, which was upheld by the Supreme Court. He is held in Evin Prison.