Tehran - (AFP) - The Iranian Ministry of Security (Intelligence) announced Saturday the arrest of a Swede on suspicion of "espionage", without providing clarifications about his identity or the date of his arrest, while Stockholm confirmed that the case dates back to months ago and had previously been revealed.

The Iranian announcement came in light of the tense relations between Tehran and Stockholm, against the backdrop of a life imprisonment sentence issued in Sweden against former Iranian official Hamid Nuri for his supposed role in the executions of Iranian dissidents in 1988.

The Ministry of Security said in a statement on its website that it had "identified and arrested a citizen of the Kingdom of Sweden for espionage."

It indicated that the suspect entered the territory of the Islamic Republic "months ago after the arrest of another European spy, and his mission was to obtain information" about the latter, without additional details.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry confirmed to AFP in May that the Iranian authorities had "recently" arrested a Swede in his thirties.

Today, the ministry confirmed, in response to a question by France Presse, that the Iranian statement was due to "a previously known issue that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working on," stressing that it is the same issue that it had previously revealed, and is not related to a new arrest.

The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence reported that the suspect had visited Israel, the Islamic Republic's arch regional enemy, more than once before entering Iranian territory.

It announced that he had made "suspicious contacts" during his "previous visits to Iran," and that his arrest was carried out "by order of the judicial authority while he was leaving" the country.

On July 14, a Swedish court sentenced Nuri, 61, to life imprisonment after his trial for "crimes against international law", which is the term used by Swedish justice to denote crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as "murder".

Tehran then condemned the verdict, saying it was "unacceptable" and "unacceptable" and described as "political".

It also announced the recall of its ambassador to Sweden for "consultations" in response to the ruling.

The trial of Nouri, a former official in the Iranian judiciary, came against the background of his supposed role in the mass executions of a large number of opposition prisoners during the 1980s.

This was the first time that an Iranian official was tried in connection with the executions that mainly affected individuals in the "People's Mujahedin Organization", which Tehran considers "terrorist", in connection with attacks in Iran carried out at that time by the organization that was allied with Saddam Hussein's regime, with the end of war between the two countries.

Nuri's trial began in Stockholm in August 2021, which led to strained relations between Sweden and Iran and raised fears of repercussions that might affect Western prisoners in Iran, especially the Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmad Reza Jalali, who has been sentenced to death since 2017.