Iran plans espionage execution of dual national

Tehran: Iran is planning to execute an Iranian-Swedish researcher imprisoned since 2016, local media reported, as major court cases further strain tense relations between the two countries.

Yesterday’s report by the semi-official ISNA news agency quoted informed Iranian officials as saying that Iran will implement the death penalty against Ahmad Reza Jalali by May 21 at the latest.

Mr Jalali is a Swedishiranian physician who specialises in disaster relief and has taught at European universities.

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

He was sentenced to death on widely condemned espionage charges in 2017, as

Iranian state TV aired what appeared to be a forced confession with Mr Jalali saying he relayed information to foreign intelligence services about Iranian nuclear scientists.

Colombo: Sri Lanka’s economy is in dire straits with its usable foreign reserves down to less than £40 million, the country’s finance minister said.

Ali Sabry was speaking to Parliament yesterday after returning to Sri Lanka from talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

He said any IMF rescue programme, including a rapid financing instrument needed to urgently resolve shortages of essential goods, would depend on negotiations on debt restructuring with creditors, and would take six months to implement.

Sri Lanka is on the brink of bankruptcy and has suspended payments on its foreign loans.

Its economic miseries have brought on a political crisis, with the government facing protests and a no-confidence motion in Parliament.

Port-au-prince: A diplomat from the Dominican Republic has been freed four days after being kidnapped in neighbouring Haiti, the Dominican foreign minister said.

The minister, Roberto Alvarez, said Carlitin Guillen Tatis was released “safe and sound”, though he did not give further details.

The Dominican government that Mr Guillen Tatis, the agriculture counsellor at its embassy in Port-auprince, was apparently kidnapped on Friday while travelling toward a border crossing.

Ambassador Faruk Miguel Castillo said Mr Guillen Tatis was apparently kidnapped in the Haitian capital’s Croix-des-bouquets district – a stronghold of the 400 Mawozo gang that kidnapped 17 people from a US missionary group in October.

Austin: An 18-year-old student died after being stabbed during a fight at a Texas high school, authorities said.

Jose Luis Ramirez Jnr was knifed on Tuesday morning in a campus bathroom at Belton High School, about 60 miles north of Austin, police said.

A fellow student, also 18, was arrested in connection with the attack and is awaiting formal charges. Classes at the school, which has around 2,500 students, were cancelled.

On Tuesday night, hundreds of people gathered for a prayer service for the Ramirez family.