STOCKHOLM: A 60-year-old Iranian citizen has been charged in Sweden with suspected war crimes committed in Iran in 1988 when around 5,000 political prisoners were executed on government orders, Stockholm prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The man, whom prosecutors declined to name publicy, has been in custody in Sweden for almost two years and is suspected of having played a leading role in the mass killing, prosecutors said.

“It’s an Iranian citizen we have charged with war crimes and murder in Iran committed in 1988,” prosecutor Kristina Lindhoff Carleson told Reuters.