An Oxford University graduate has been freed from Iran's notorious Evin prison after 790 days in jail. 

Johan Floderus read Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) at Harris Manchester College at Oxford before the Swedish national became an EU diplomat.  

The graduate was a tourist visiting friends in Tehran during the Easter Break in 2022, when he was arrested at the airport on his way home.

He was never sentenced despite facing espionage related charges.

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Harris Manchester and many of Mr Floderus' supporters celebrated his release on Saturday, June 15, while the #FreeJohanFloderus group said their hearts go out to "the innocent people still suffering under Iran's irresponsible hostage diplomacy". 

The FreeJohanFloderus advocacy support group said on X, formerly Twitter, that Mr Floderus was home and safe. 

The group said it and Mr Floderus' family and friends were "overjoyed", thanking the Swedish government and the European Union for their support. 


The group said: "We thank everyone who has supported the campaign.

"Our hearts go out to everyone who is celebrating tonight, but our hearts also go out to the innocent people still suffering under Iran's irresponsible hostage diplomacy." 

A prisoner swap between Iran and Sweden, saw Johan and another Swedish national Saeed Azizi swapped in exchange for an Iranian convicted of committing war crimes as part of mass executions in the Islamic Republic in 1988. 

Hamid Nouri was arrested by Sweden in 2019 as he travelled there as a tourist, which is believed to have sparked the arrest of Mr Floderus and Mr Azizi. 

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Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said diplomat Mr Floderus and Swedish citizen, Mr  Azizi, had been facing a “hell on earth”.

Mr Kristersson said: “Iran has made these Swedes pawns in a cynical negotiation game with the aim of getting the Iranian citizen Hamid Nouri released from Sweden. 

“It has been clear all along that this operation would require difficult decisions – now the government has made those decisions.”

In 2022, the Stockholm District Court sentenced Nouri to life in prison.

It identified him as an assistant to the deputy prosecutor at the Gohardasht prison outside the Iranian city of Karaj, and as having been involved in, what international rights groups estimate, were the executions of as many as 5000 people.

The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, praised the release of the two Swedish men on social platform X.

He said: “Other EU citizens are still arbitrarily detained in Iran.

“We’ll continue to work for their freedom together.”

Human Rights Activists in Iran reported that Mr Azizi, a dual Iranian-Swedish national who has cancer, had been sentenced to five years in prison by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security”.