Sweden’s trial of Iranian official gives hope to victims
Earlier this month, the trial of former Iranian official Hamid Nouri started in Sweden. He is accused of war crimes, murder and the torture of thousands of prisoners in the 1980s. Nouri was arrested upon his arrival in Sweden in 2019 and has been in pre-trial detention ever since. The trial, which started on Aug. 10, may have implications for new Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who also played a major role in those killings.
The Nouri case has been hailed by legal scholars as a landmark case, as it brings into focus the growing practice of states assuming “universal jurisdiction” over especially heinous crimes committed outside their borders.
Swedish prosecutors invoked this principle to bring Nouri’s case to trial in Sweden. It is believed to be the first time anyone has gone on trial over the July and August 1988 killings of about 5,000 detainees linked to Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq, also known as the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran.
Nouri is on trial over his role in the execution of “a very large number” of those inmates. According to the indictment brought by Swedish public prosecutors, Nouri is accused of “intentionally killing, together with other perpetrators, a large number of prisoners who sympathized with various left-wing groups and who were regarded as apostates,” as well as “crimes against humanity.”
Nouri has denied responsibility for the killings, but has also said they were justified because of a fatwa, or religious ruling, made by Iran’s supreme leader at the time, Ayatollah Khomeini.
Human rights groups have long called for accountability for these crimes. In May, more than 150 personalities, including Nobel Prize winners, former heads of state and former UN officials, called for an international investigation into the state-ordered mass killings of 1988.
Antoine Bernard of Reporters Without Borders issued a statement lauding the start of Nouri’s trial in Stockholm, which “marks both the first time the mullah regime’s crimes are being tried and the first time that the terrible massacres of 1988 are being tried.” The statement added: “Many journalists were among the victims of the 1988 massacres because of their journalistic activity. Nouri must be held to account for them as well, until justice finally catches up with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the other members of the ‘death commissions’ that were behind the secret executions.”
Nouri’s case has come under even closer scrutiny since Raisi was elected president of Iran. Raisi, who was sworn in on Aug. 5, was one of four judges who sat on secret tribunals to “re-try” the prisoners and ordered the execution of thousands of them. In July, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran Javaid Rehman called for an impartial inquiry into the mass executions, including the role Raisi played in them.
Dozens of exiled Iranians, former prisoners and families of the victims protested outside the court in Stockholm as Nouri’s trial began. One of the protesters, himself a former prisoner in Iran, was quoted by Swedish media as saying: “For many years, the regime tried to hide these massacres from the eyes of the world. I hope it will shed light on what happened to my friends who have been massacred.”
The doctrine of universal jurisdiction allows third-party states to prosecute some especially serious crimes without the requirement that a connection exists between the prosecuting state and the place where the crimes were committed or the victims affected.
The principle refers to the idea that a national court may prosecute individuals for serious breaches of international law, such as crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, and torture. It is based on the idea that such crimes harm the international order itself, which individual states must protect. Universal jurisdiction is invoked when the “traditional” bases of criminal jurisdiction are not available, such as when the defendant was not a national of the prosecuting state, the crime was not committed in the state’s territory or against its nationals, or the state’s own national interests were not adversely affected.
National courts can exercise universal jurisdiction when the state has adopted legislation recognizing the crimes relevant to that doctrine and authorizing their prosecution. Sometimes this national legislation is mandated by international agreements, such as the UN Convention against Torture and
Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which requires states to adopt the laws necessary to prosecute or extradite any person accused of torture who is within their territorial jurisdiction, even when the crime was not committed on their territory.
State practice regarding the application of universal jurisdiction varies around the world according to local political and legal considerations. However, invoking universal jurisdiction has grown in practice in recent years, bolstered by groundbreaking decisions handed down by highly regarded international tribunals. In 2012, the International Court of Justice confirmed that there is an “obligation” on states to either prosecute perpetrators of heinous crimes or extradite them to another country that has jurisdiction for their prosecution. That landmark case was related to violations of the torture convention. It involved a former African president who was accused of engaging in torture, war crimes and crimes against humanity against thousands of victims. At the time of the ICJ decision, he had been residing in Senegal as a political asylee following the overthrow of his government.
The Nouri case in Sweden is likely to have wide-ranging ramifications for the application of the universal jurisdiction principle and for the rights of victims of such crimes. The trial is expected to last for months and involve dozens of witnesses. If Nouri is convicted, the case will also likely have ramifications for Iran. Calls for the prosecution of other officials, including Raisi, will likely grow louder.
This is believed
to be the first time anyone has
gone on trial over the 1988 killings of about
5,000 detainees
Any agreement that could change
fundamentally the state of affairs between Israel
and Hamas remains elusive