A court in Iran sentenced two Swedish nationals on drug-related charges on Monday, 30 August.

The individuals identified as Simon Kasper Brown and Stephen Kevin Gilbert received five and eight years in prison respectively.

According to local media reports, the individuals were arrested in an investigation “targeting an international drug trafficking network” in July 2020.

The trial started in September 2021, with the official website of the judiciary stating that the two foreigners were caught with 10 kilograms of opium resin and 21,000 Tramadol painkiller tablets.

Iran’s judiciary spokesman, Masoud Setayeshi, told reporters that Brown had been ordered to pay 10 times the value of his alleged contraband, amounting to 10 billion Iranian rials, which is equivalent to $30,000.

Gilbert was also fined to pay 150 million rials in financial penalties, or around $500, as well as 60 lashes.

In late July, Iran’s intelligence ministry confirmed the arrest of a Swedish national on charges of spying.  The unnamed individual has been accused of extracting secret information after he entered the country as a tourist.

The relationship between Iran and Sweden has worn thin in recent years, following the arrest of Hamid Nouri, an Iranian citizen who was sentenced to life in prison on murder charges in Sweden. Nouri was the assistant to the deputy prosecutor in an Iranian prison in 1988.

Back in May, Iran’s judiciary dismissed the possibility of a prisoner exchange with Sweden between former Iranian official Hamid Nouri, and Iranian-Swedish national Ahmadreza Djalali, who faces the death penalty in Iran on charges of spying against the Islamic Republic.

Djalali was imprisoned in 2016 on espionage charges, and his death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic. He was accused of having spied for Israel.

According to Iranian officials, the classified information Djalali provided to the Israeli Mossad led to the assassination of at least two Iranian nuclear scientists.