“Habib Chaab’s death sentence for corruption on Earth, management and leadership of a rebel group, and designing and executing numerous terrorist operations has been approved by the Supreme Court,” the agency said. Iranian Justice Mizan Online. The Iranian-Swedish dissident, detained since 2020 in Iran, where he was sentenced for “terrorism”, therefore faces the death penalty.
Leader of the ASMLA (Arab Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz) group, considered a terrorist movement by the Iranian authorities, Mr. Chaab disappeared in October 2020 after going to Istanbul and before reappearing a months later detained in Iran. On trial since January 2022 for “terrorism” and especially the spread of “corruption on Earth”, justice announced on December 6 the death sentence for this man in his fifties according to the media.
In November 2020, Iranian television broadcast a video of Habib Chaab in which he accused himself of a deadly attack that targeted a military parade in September 2018 in Ahvaz, capital of Khuzestan province. “Mr. Chaab’s death sentence is confirmed and final,” Mizan Online reported.
Sweden, of which he is a citizen, has taken steps to offer him consular assistance but without result, because Iran does not recognize dual nationality.
On Monday, an Iranian court sentenced six men accused of being part of the ASMLA group to death, accusing them of “following the orders of their European leaders, such as Habib Nabgan and Habib Chaab”. Tehran had provoked a wave of international indignation after executing in January a former defense official, the Iranian-Briton Alireza Akbari, convicted of espionage.
On March 1, Germany expelled two diplomats stationed in Berlin to protest against the death sentence of 67-year-old Iranian-German dissident Jamshid Sharmahd. He was accused of having participated in an attack against a mosque in Shiraz, in the south of Iran, which killed 14 people in April 2008.
At least 16 Western passport holders, including six French, are detained in Iran. Most of them are dual nationals but Iran does not recognize dual nationality status for its nationals.
