Suddenly, at midnight, eight men came and took him away from his fellow prisoners. Swedish-Iranian Ahmadreza Djalali, who has been imprisoned in Iran since 2016 and sentenced to death for almost as long, was taken to a military prison.
For four days and nights, he was subjected to "more than what a human being can tolerate", says Vida Mehrannia.
He thought they would execute him, but they took him to an apartment where he was for about 25 days. It was as if he disappeared, she continues.
Great risk of execution
Then there was another two months of radio silence, without knowledge of where he was.
Since Djalali is sentenced to death for spying for Israel, the risk of him being executed soon has been considered great since the war between Iran and Israel in June.
It was after that, when Evin prison was attacked, that he was moved. Other prisoners were allowed to return to Evin prison weeks later, while Ahmadreza Djalali was isolated without contact with the outside world.
Diplomatic pressure
The Swedish government and several human rights organizations have engaged in Djalali's case. In connection with the meeting of world leaders in New York for the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard (The Moderate Party) met her Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi. She repeated the demands that Djalali be released immediately and that the family must get a sign of life.
Malmer Stenergard now writes on X among other things that it is "very welcome that Djalali has been able to have contact with his relatives".
"Sweden's demands remain, that Iran should immediately release Ahmadreza Djalali for humanitarian reasons so that he can be reunited with his family", she writes further.
Vida Mehrannia believes that the diplomatic pressure is an important reason why her husband has been able to return to Evin, which is located on the outskirts of Tehran.
Ahmadreza Djalali is a doctor and researcher in disaster medicine. He received his doctorate from the Karolinska Institute in 2012.
In 2016, he was arrested in Iran, where he had traveled to participate in a seminar on disaster medicine. He has since been sentenced to death for espionage allegations that he has always denied. He is reported to have been forced to confess under torture.
Djalali became a Swedish citizen in 2018.
But when Sweden carried out a prisoner exchange with Iran in 2024, to get Swedish citizens home in exchange for the Iranian Hamid Noury, who was sentenced to life in Sweden, Djalali was left behind. According to the Swedish government, Iran did not even want to discuss his case in the negotiations.
During the more than nine years he has been in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, his health has deteriorated significantly. In May 2025, he suffered a heart attack, but was denied adequate care.
