Sweden’s security service Sapo says Iran has ramped up its targeting of dissidents since the start of the Iran war, accusing them of conscripting organised crime groups to carry out “acts of violence” on Swedish soil.
Five teenagers are set to appear in court on Wednesday over the alleged attempted murder of a dissident Iranian researcher, Arvin Khoshnood, in the south of Sweden.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
The prosecution says that one of the teenagers rang the doorbell of Khoshnood’s home in the city of Malmo on 2 September last year, armed with a knife.
The researcher’s wife opened the door, and the suspect, 16 at the time, asked her whether her husband was home. Khoshnood, who was present, stayed out of sight and immediately called the police, according to the charge sheet.
The teenager had been recruited via encrypted messaging apps by his co-defendants, with the promise of a payment if he killed Khoshnood, prosecutors say.
They say three of the accused, and a fourth person believed to be the mastermind, whose identity had not yet been established, gave him instructions, provided the knife and negotiated the terms of his "contract" before he took action.
Three of the five teenagers are charged with attempted murder, and the others of complicity.
"These are acts that fall under so-called crime as a service, where young perpetrators in Sweden take on assignments from individuals connected to organised crime," prosecutor Per-Erik Rinsell said in a statement.
Khoshnood — who is a supporter of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah — told Swedish media that he believed the attack had been organised by Foxtrot, one of Sweden's main criminal gangs, whose leader Rawa Majid is reported to have ties to the Iranian government.
Foxtrot is behind several shootings, bombings and murders carried out in Sweden in recent years, and like other gangs, uses a loosely structured social media system to recruit children to carry out crimes.
Khoshnood regularly appears in Swedish media as an expert on Iran. On social media, he openly supports Pahlavi, who lives in exile in the United States and leads one of many foreign-based opposition movements.
The Swedish security service Sapo has called Iran one of the main threats to the country's security.
In particular, Sapo has accused Iran of recruiting members of Swedish criminal gangs to commit "acts of violence" against Israeli interests and Iranian opposition figures in Sweden — a claim Tehran denies.
Several of the accused also face charges over an attempted murder in the city of Uddevalla, a week after the alleged attempt on Khoshnood's life. It’s not yet clear whether the target was also an Iranian dissident.