Iran Makes Second Effort to Recover IRGC Officer from Iraqi Custody

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On December 20, the FBI unsealed its criminal case against Iranian national Mohammad Reza Nouri (aka Muhammad Rida Husayn, Ali Asghar Nuri, and Abu Abbas) in connection with his alleged role in orchestrating the November 7, 2022, murder of American Stephen Troell in Baghdad. In the case, Nour is described as a captain in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and an “advisor to armed militia groups in Iraq.”  The twenty-eight-page unsealed deposition by an FBI special agent provides extensive detail on Nouri’s command of the nine-man Iraqi cell (drawn from multiple unnamed “militias”) that sought to kidnap at least three people and murder at least seven others (including U.S. citizens) in a campaign intended to avenge the death of Qods Force commander Qasem Soleimani and build leverage over the United States through hostage-taking. 

With strong U.S. urging, Iraqi authorities captured four Iraqi suspects from the nine-man cell in the weeks after the killing: Haydar Yousef Akab Hachem, Muhammad Qasim Salih Mahdi, Ali Malik Hamid Majid, and Ali Jamil Ajeel Saghi). They also apprehended one Iranian (Nouri) on March 26, 2023. Days after Nouri's arrest, three officials approached the Iraqi judiciary to seek his release: Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, an IRGC-QF colonel known as Hajji Jawad (Nouri's direct commander), and Jawad al-Talibawi, the deputy head of the militia Asaib Ahl al-Haq. This high-ranking delegation made the argument that detaining the four Iraqis for Troell's slaying would be enough to satisfy the Americans, so the Iranian should be released. 

Instead, the Iraqi judiciary (with strong U.S. urging) held on to Nouri and the four Iraqis. All five (at the time unnamed in public) were found guilty of acts of terrorism and sentenced by the Karkh Criminal Court on August 31, 2023 to life imprisonment – itself a notable compromise as their actions were legally punishable by death penalty. In October 2023, the five names were leaked and became public, though identifying photographs of the men were not made available and, uncommonly again, no confessions were televised. 

In June 2024, the case took another turn. Iran International  stated that the IRGC-QF, Iran’s judiciary and Iran’s foreign ministry all sought to recover Nouri. According to Iran International, Kazem Gharibabadi, the assistant to the head of the judiciary for international affairs in Iran, claimed that Iran had successfully fought U.S. efforts to get Nouri (who they refer to as a “media advisor”) extradited to the United States, and Sharqiya News reported Gharibabadi  as saying that Iran had successfully  shifted Nouri’s charges from Iraq’s anti-terrorism law to criminal law instead. Iran International connected Nouri to U.S.-designated terrorist organization Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba at the time. Iran’s Tasnim news agency published pictures of Mohammad Reza Nouri next to Akram Kaabi, Nujaba's secretary-general (Figure 2). 

Now Iran appears to be seeking Nouri’s release again, this time as one of over a hundred Iranians that have been listed to take part in a prisoner swap between the two countries. Iran and Iraq have a mechanism to exchange sentenced prisoners to allow them to serve their sentences in their home country. Mohammad Reza Nouri is among the 100-plus names recently submitted to the Iraqi Ministry of Justice by Iran to be included in a prisoner swap. Pressure is now being felt by Iraqi judges, brought in particular by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani after he returned from his mid-January trip to Iran, where Sudani met Nouri’s relatives. 

U.S. pressure has thus far prevented Sudani from achieving Nouri’s release, and maintenance of this U.S. pressure is vital if the Iran-backed Coordination Framework is to be prevented from removing Nouri before he can be extradited to the United States to be tried for crimes that carry multiple life sentences. The four convicted Iraqis should be identified by image, in order to aid surveillance that they have not been quietly released, and future amnesties in Iraq should be carefully monitored for signs of their release. The remaining five attackers at large—including Ali Abdal-Ridha Salih Alwan al-Batbuti (also known as Ali Farfona), the man who actually shot Troell, a son-in-law of AAH’s Jawad al-Talibawi—should also be vigorously pursued if they reappear in Iraq. The Stephen Troell case should become a visible bellwether for whether this and future Iraqi governments are serious about being a friend and partner of the United States.