Amnesty International has praised a Swedish court’s decision to sentence a former Iranian jailor to life imprisonment over executions of political prisoners in 1988.

In reaction to the landmark decision of Stockholm’s District Court to sentence Hamid Nouri to life in prison, the rights group said in a Thursday statement that is "an unprecedented step towards justice.” 

His conviction and sentence “sends an unequivocal, and long overdue, message to the Iranian authorities that those responsible for crimes against humanity in Iran will not escape justice,” Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said.

She said the world finally witnessed an Iranian official held to account, adding that “For more than three decades, survivors and relatives of thousands of political dissidents extrajudicially killed and forcibly disappeared in Iran’s 1988 prison massacres, have struggled for truth and justice.”

Eltahawy also called on all states to exercise universal jurisdiction to criminally investigate all other former and current officials against whom there is evidence of involvement in past and ongoing crimes against humanity, including President Ebrahim Raisi, emphasizing that “This critical ruling must serve as a wake-up call to the international community to tackle the crisis of impunity that prevails in Iran.”

Sweden arrested Nouri, now 61, upon his arrival in Sweden at Stockholm Airport in 2019 and in 2021 put him on trial over the mass execution and torture of prisoners at Gohardasht Prison in July and August 1988.