{"id":90863,"date":"2020-12-03T08:31:25","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T13:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=90863"},"modified":"2020-12-03T08:31:25","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T13:31:25","slug":"auto-draft-351","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2020\/12\/03\/auto-draft-351\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Iran Officials Delay Execution of Doctor After International Outcry, Wife Says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n

\"\"VOA \u2014 The wife of an Iranian-Swedish medical doctor sentenced to death in Iran for alleged espionage says senior officials have delayed her husband’s transfer to a prison where he could have faced imminent execution, following a wave of international appeals to spare his life.<\/p>\n

Speaking to VOA Persian from her home in Sweden on Wednesday, Vida Mehran Nia cited her Iran-based lawyer, Haleh Mousavian, as saying senior Iranian officials had called off a judiciary order to transfer her husband, Ahmad Reza Jalali, from Tehran\u2019s Evin prison to Karaj\u2019s Rajaei Shahr prison by 5 p.m. Iran time on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The identities of the officials who purportedly called off the prison transfer were not known, and VOA could not independently verify the delay, as it is barred from reporting inside Iran.<\/p>\n

Mehran Nia said the lawyer told her that Jalali\u2019s transfer to Rajaei Shahr would be postponed for several days.<\/p>\n

In an earlier interview Tuesday with VOA, Mehran Nia said she had expected Jalali\u2019s transfer to happen that day and feared his execution would soon follow, based on a previous update she received from the lawyer.<\/p>\n

She also said the last direct contact she had with Jalali was a November 24 phone call in which he told her of the transfer to Rajaei Shahr. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Iran detained Jalali, a disaster medicine researcher who had relocated to Sweden, in April 2016 when he returned to the Iranian capital for a scientific conference at the invitation of\u202fTehran\u202fUniversity.\u202fAuthorities accused him of collaborating with hostile foreign governments and sentenced him to death in October 2017.<\/p>\n

Two months later, Iranian state TV aired a video of Jalali seemingly confessing to giving information to Israel\u2019s Mossad spy agency about Iranian military and nuclear scientists, two of whom were assassinated in 2010. Iran considers Israel to be its arch foe.\u202f<\/p>\n

But in a\u202fvoice recording made by Jalali in prison and later posted on YouTube, he said his interrogators had forced him to make the confession. Sweden granted him citizenship in February 2018 to try to persuade Iran to commute his death sentence and release him.\u202f<\/p>\n

Since Mehran Nia reported last week that Jalali was put on one week\u2019s notice for a potential execution, there has been an outpouring of social media appeals for Iran to spare his life. The appeals have come from Iranian and international rights activists, academics who worked with Jalali at universities in Sweden, Belgium and Italy, and European officials.<\/p>\n

In a November 24 tweet, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said she had spoken with her Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif and was working to ensure Jalali\u2019s death sentence would not be carried out. She also reiterated Sweden\u2019s opposition to the death penalty.<\/p>\n

A BBC report<\/a> published the next day cited Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh as saying Swedish authorities had \u201cincomplete and false” information about Jalali, without elaborating.<\/p>\n

In a Zoom briefing on November 25, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Elliott Abrams described Jalali\u2019s treatment as terrible. He also said Iran does not listen to humanitarian appeals and only understands pressure.<\/p>\n