Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said on Thursday that it is “extremely negative” that a country pursues murder plots in Sweden.
Billstrom expressed frustration to his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian after reports that Tehran’s intelligence service sent an undercover couple to murder Jews in the country.
Last week, Swedish Radio (SR) reported that an Iranian couple, Mahdi Ramezani and Fereshteh Sanaeifarid, had been suspected of planning to kill Jewish representatives in Sweden in 2021.
The couple were arrested in April 2021 on suspicion of conspiracy to commit a terrorist crime, SR reported.
“It is of course something extremely negative that a country is pursuing murder plots on our territory,” Billstrom told the SR.
They were deported in 2022 for posing a security risk.
Iran didn’t comment on the report, but Amirabdollahian contacted his Swedish counterpart 24 hours after the plot details were published.
“That Iranian agents on Swedish soil have plotted murders of Swedish citizens — and that these citizens are also of Jewish background — is of course something we take very seriously,” Billstrom said.
“I made this clear to my Iranian colleague, how we look at this and also of course how it affects the relationship between our countries,” he added.
The reports said that the couple had arrived in Sweden posing as Afghan refugees in 2017. SR cited sources saying that the two were working on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC.
The alleged agents had reportedly identified three targets, gathering addresses and photographs.
Billstrom said he would raise the issue with his counterparts in the EU.
“This is a matter of general interest in the EU... and it may be beneficial for cooperation between EU member states to exchange ideas on this,” he told SR.
