International 'Hostage Diplomacy': Kidnapping for Fun and Profit

by Nima Gholam Ali Pour

• That Iran can, through hostage-taking and extortion, force countries such as the United States, Belgium and Sweden to hand over a convicted criminal who has clearly violated international law shows that gangster methods, used by the Iranian mullahs and others, evidently carry more weight than international law.
• This blackmail essentially teaches rogue states that through violence and extortion they can get Western states to make concessions, massive payments, and to de-prioritize and deviate from international law.
• If a state takes foreign visitors hostage, and all power then lies with those who kidnap the most, threaten the most and have the largest capacity for violence -- including the imminent probability of nuclear weapons -- then international law will soon mean nothing.
• Apart from effectively having a public budget to support terrorism, Iran's regime acts as lawlessly as the regimes of Russia or North Korea, and behaves in general as terrorists.
• It seems clear that hostage diplomacy is a deliberate strategy for Iran and Russia's current regimes. Why should it not be? It works!
• Countries in the West might do well to communicate this situation and disclaim responsibility for anyone who, despite that lawlessness, chooses to travel to Russia, Iran or other such states. Hostage diplomacy must be stopped.

On June 15, Iran and Sweden conducted a prisoner exchange. Two innocent Swedish citizens, Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi, were exchanged for an Iranian citizen, Hamid Noury, who had been convicted by a Swedish court of the torture and mass execution of political prisoners he had committed in Iran. Pictured: Floderus (R) is greeted by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at Arlanda Airport near Stockholm, on June 15, 2024. (Photo by Tom Samuelsson/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)


On June 15, the Swedish government announced that it had conducted a prisoner exchange with Iran's regime. An Iranian citizen, Hamid Noury, was exchanged for two Swedish citizens, Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi.

Noury stood convicted by a Swedish court of the torture and mass execution of political prisoners he had committed in Iran's Gohardasht prison in the late 1980s, following a fatwa from Iran's then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In November 2019, Noury was lured to Sweden by some Iranians with promises of luxury trips, parties, and female companionship. At Arlanda Airport, Noury was met by Swedish police, and in July 2022, he was sentenced for his crimes to life imprisonment by the Stockholm District Court

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