Iran irate over Swedish claims it recruited criminals to target Israeli interests
- Tehran’s foreign ministry called the accusations ‘baseless and spiteful’ on Sunday, as it summoned Sweden’s temporary charge d’affaires
- Swedish intelligence earlier accused Iran of recruiting gang members as proxies to commit ‘acts of violence’ against Israeli interests in Sweden
The Swedish diplomat was summoned by the assistant of the foreign ministry’s general directorate for western Europe, the ministry posted on the social media platform X.
Iran’s embassy in Stockholm had on Friday already denied accusations that Tehran was recruiting criminal gang members as proxies to commit “acts of violence” against Israeli interests in Sweden.
That came in reply to Sweden’s intelligence agency saying the day prior that Iran was “using criminal networks in Sweden to carry out acts of violence against other states, groups or people in Sweden that it considers a threat.”
The service, commonly known as Sapo, said these were particularly aimed at “Israeli and Jewish interests, targets and operations in Sweden”.
Shortly before Sapo’s announcement, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter cited documents from Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency as saying the heads of two Swedish gangs had been recruited by the Iranian regime.
