Swedish court jails ex-Iran official for life

STOCKHOLM: A Swedish court on Thursday handed a life sentence to former Iranian prison official Hamid Noury for crimes committed during a 1988 purge of dissidents, in the first trial related to the mass executions.

Noury, 61, was convicted of a "serious crime against international law" and "murder", the Stockholm district court said in a statement. "The sentence is life imprisonment." According to the court, Noury was an assistant prosecutor in a prison near Tehran at the time of the events. "The investigation has shown that the accused, jointly and in collusion with others, participated in the commission of the criminal acts," the court said.