The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the temporary Swedish Chargé d’Affaires in Tehran to inform him of its protest against his country’s accusations that Tehran is using “criminal gangs” to attack Israel and its interests in Sweden, as it announced on Sunday, and described those accusations as “malicious and baseless.”
The Iranian Foreign Ministry explained through its account on the X platform that
” Yesterday, Friday, the Iranian embassy in Stockholm denounced ‘false information,’ in response to the accusations leveled by Swedish intelligence against Tehran of recruiting criminal gangs to commit acts of violence against Israel and its interests.”
The embassy said, “Unfortunately, some Swedish media reported false and baseless allegations about media outlets and institutions affiliated with this brutal regime (Israel), and published false and fabricated statements against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
It added that it “expects the Swedish media not to trust the allegations and reports publi
shed by the Israeli regime” and will work to “put an end to the crimes of the Zionist regime in Palestine.”
Last Thursday, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported from documents of the Israeli intelligence service (Mossad) that Rawa Majeed, head of the Foxtrot network, one of the main gangs in Sweden, and his main opponent, Ismail Abdo, who heads the Rumba gang, are working for Iran.
Hours after the report was published, during a press conference, Swedish intelligence accused the Iranian regime of using criminal networks in the country to carry out acts of violence against other countries, groups or individuals. It referred in particular to “Israeli and Jewish interests, objectives and operations in Sweden.”
The Swedish accusation came two weeks after shots were fired near the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, and three months after an ‘activated explosive device’ was found in its vicinity. The Israeli ambassador spoke at the time of an “assault attempt.”
Meanwhile, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Bills
trom summoned the Iranian Chargé d’Affaires yesterday, Friday, stressing that his country “will not be a platform in which government agencies use criminal networks to advance their interests.”
The head of the intelligence services, Daniel Stenling, announced during a press conference that Sweden considers it to have become an arena of tension between Israel and Iran in light of the escalation of tension between the two countries since the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on the seventh of last October.
Relations between Sweden and Iran have deteriorated since a Swedish court in July 2022 issued a life prison sentence against former Iranian prison official Hamid Nouri, 62, on charges of committing crimes during a purge campaign targeting opponents in 1988.
As Nouri’s trial began, Iran arrested Swedish EU diplomat Johan Fluderus in April 2022 and accused him of spying for Israel, which is punishable by death.
Source: National Iraqi News Agency