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Iran’s judiciary on September 12 confirmed the detention of a Swedish diplomat working for the European Union a week after Stockholm and Brussels revealed the latest known case of a foreign national being held by Tehran amid political tensions with the West.

Johan Floderus, a Swedish diplomat working for the EU, has been held captive in Iran for more than 500 days. He was arrested on April 17, 2022, at Tehran’s airport as he was returning home from a trip with friends.

His family said that he was being held in “unacceptable” conditions, but Iran claims his detention is “lawful.”

“The Swedish national has been lawfully imprisoned following preliminary inquiry and the results of a full investigation into his case will be released in the coming days,” judiciary spokesman Masud Setayeshi said on September 12, the first public statement by an Iranian official on the matter.

The European Commission did not confirm that Iran was holding one of its diplomats until The New York Times reported it early in September. Previously, it had said a Swedish national was being held but did not mention his EU position.

Iran announced in July 2022 it had arrested a Swedish man and was holding him on espionage charges, but did not mention his name or position at the time. The announcement came two weeks after an Iranian citizen received a life jail term in Sweden for his role in the Iranian regime’s 1988 mass executions of thousands of opponents.

Iranian security forces have taken some 40 foreign nationals into custody during the current wave of unrest, often without revealing any charges. Western countries have repeatedly said Iran is trying to take advantage of foreign countries by taking dual and foreign nationals hostage to use in prisoner swaps.

In May, Iran executed Swedish-Iranian dissident Habib Chaab, who was accused of terrorism.

Floderus’s family said in a statement released on September 10, his 33 birthday, that he was being kept with the light permanently on in his cell and was not receiving adequate food, outside exercise, or medical checkups.

“In blatant disregard of international guidelines, he has spent over 300 days in solitary confinement,” the statement added.

His relatives said Floderus was denied any contact with them during the first 10 months of his detention and had been granted only “a very few number of consular visits.”

According to his family, Floderus has been held at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. Since its construction in 1971, the prison has been the site of a series of abuses that continued after the shah was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said on September 5 that Sweden’s government had taken the lead on efforts to have Floderus freed, with support from EU institutions.

“Every time we had diplomatic meetings, at all levels, we have put the issue on the table. Relentlessly,” he added.

European Commissioner Ylva Johansson said on September 11 she was “very worried” about Floderus, who worked in her team for nearly two years when she managed the EU portfolio on migration and home affairs.

Floderus moved in September 2021 from Johansson’s service to the European External Action Service, the EU’s foreign diplomacy arm, to work in Brussels for the EU delegation to Afghanistan.

Relations between Sweden and Iran have been tense in recent years. Iran recalled its ambassador in 2022 after a Swedish court convicted Iranian citizen Hamid Noury of war crimes and murder during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and sentenced him to life in prison.

Relations between Tehran and Stockholm were strained further after a man tore up and burned a Koran outside a mosque in the Swedish capital in July. In protest, Iran has refrained from sending a new ambassador to Sweden.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and dpa