What happens if authoritarian states start executing hostages?
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What happens if authoritarian states start executing hostages?
Washington Post- May 10th 2022
A court in Sweden is preparing to issue a verdict in the war crimes trial of Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian official who is implicated in the mass execution of dissidents. Seemingly in response, Iran’s judiciary announced last week that it intended to carry out the execution of a Swedish citizen sentenced to death on unfounded charges.
This moment could mark either a horrific escalation in the Iranian regime’s hostage diplomacy strategy — one that puts the life of any innocent foreign national that travels to Iran at grave risk. Or it could provide the clarity that the free world needs to finally come together to disrupt the serial crime of state hostage-taking.
For years, the biggest distinction between hostages abducted by non-state actors versus those arrested and held via a government’s judicial system was the hostages’ probable fates. Those taken by terrorists were more likely to be killed by their captors, while those held by states were more likely to be released in negotiated settlements.
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