|
 TEHRAN, May 2, 2006 (AFP) - An Iranian court
has jailed two Swedes for three years for photographying
military installations, Justice Minister Jamal Karimi-Rad
told the student news agency ISNA Tuesday.
In the Islamic republic, the crime of espionage can carry the death penalty.
The pair had appeared before a revolutionary court in the Gulf port of Bandar Abbas on April 22,
charged with taking pictures of military sites, naval facilities and
telecommunication posts on the island of Qeshm.
The Swedish daily Aftonbladet identified the two
men as construction workers aged between 30 and 40 from western Sweden.
The Swedish foreign ministry had earlier said its embassy in Tehran was
"working intensively" to secure the pair's release.
Two other Europeans -- one French and one German --
were jailed by an Iranian court in March after straying into sensitive Gulf
waters.
German tourist Donald Klein and French boatman Stephane
Lherbier, 32, were each given 18 months by an
appeals court for violating Iran's territorial
waters.
Defence lawyers said the pair had strayed into Iranian waters unwittingly
while on a fishing trip from the United Arab
Emirates last November as they had
been using Emirati maps which showed the waters as Emirati.
Three small islands in the Gulf have been disputed by Iran and the UAE ever
since the federation won independence from Britain in the early
1970s.
|