Iran’s judiciary says a court has sentenced two Swedish men for drug trafficking to lengthy prison terms, highlighting tense relations between the two countries.
Iranian Judiciary spokesman Massud Setayeshi told reporters that the pair, Stephen Kevin Gilbert and Simon Kasper Brown, were arrested in July 2020 at an airport in Tehran as they were about to leave the country.
"Simon Kasper Brown, a Swedish citizen, was sentenced to five years in prison and fined for transporting more than 21,000 illegal pills of tramadol," an opioid painkiller, Setayeshi said.
"Stephen Kevin Gilbert, another citizen of this country, was sentenced to eight years in prison, 60 lashes and a fine, for being in possession of 9.8 kilograms of opium resin," he added.
Iran is a key smuggling route for opium and heroin from neighboring Afghanistan.
The trial of the men -- accused of being part of an "international drug trafficking gang" -- opened in September 2021.
Setayeshi said the two convicts "had nothing to do" with another Swede whose arrest was announced in July days after a court in Stockholm sentenced a former Iranian prison official to life in prison for war crimes.
The identity of the Swedish citizen who faces allegations of "espionage” has not been made public.
Iran has been repeatedly accused of arresting foreign and dual nationals to use them to win concessions from Western countries.
