Iraqi journalist accused of spying for Iran arrested in Sweden

An Iraqi journalist suspected of spying for Iran has been arrested in Sweden, according to British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

The newspaper said Stockholm-based Iraqi journalist Raghdan al-Khazali was arrested in Sweden for allegedly spying on members of a group of Ahwazis- members of Iran’s minority Arab community- for Iran’s government.

The Iranian government has been accused of ordering assassinations of European-Iranian opposition group members.

In 2017, one of the leaders of the National Liberation Movement of Ahwaz, an Ahwazi Arab nationalist group, Ahmad Molla Nissi, was killed in the Netherlands in 2017.

In January, the Netherlands accused Iran of involvement in the murder of two dissidents on Dutch soil, including Nissi’s, who was murdered in The Hague.

The Dutch secret service “has strong indications that Iran was involved in the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin in Almere 2015 and in The Hague in 2017,” Foreign Minister Stef Blok said in a letter to parliament.

“These individuals were opponents of the Iranian regime,” Blok said. “The Netherlands considers it probable that Iran had a hand in the preparation or commissioning of assassinations and attacks on EU territory.”

Al-Khazali was a Stockholm correspondent for the EuroTimes, a Europe-based newspaper.

The Telegraph reported that al-Khazali has been held in pre-trial detention for “serious illegal intelligence activities against an individual,” as per a Swedish court ruling.