Iran says it and Saudi Arabia have an agreement under which nationals of one country convicted in the other country would be allowed to serve their prison time in their home country.
Saudi Arabia says there is no such agreement.
Such exchange-of-prisoner agreements exist between many countries. The United States started the move for them back in the 1970s when many American college students were being arrested abroad on drug charges and sentenced to fetid cells with poor food and poorer medical care. Public pressure got the federal government to negotiate such agreements with several countries.
Iran became interested in the issue a few months ago when Saudi Arabia executed several Iranian nationals arrested on a boat in the Persian Gulf with drugs.
Last week, PressTV reported that Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi announced July 24 that Iran and Saudi Arabia had negotiated a memorandum of understanding on such prisoner exchanges and would soon sign it.
Three days later, the daily Saudi Gazette quoted the Saudi Foreign Ministry as denying there was any such agreement in the works.
The Saudi Foreign Affairs spokesman told the Saudi Gazette there had never even been any discussion with Iran on the subject. He also complained that Iran was ignoring other agreements that had been signed between the two states, although he did not identify them. “If the Iranian side is interested in signing a memorandum of understanding [on prisoner exchanges], they first have to activate the numerous agreements signed between the two countries in a number of fields,” he said.
Then on Tuesday, Hassan Qashqavi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for consular affairs, was quoted by the Iranian state news agency as saying the agreement on prisoner exchanges had already been signed. He told reporters the Saudi spokesman needed to do more research before speaking.
He said an agreement was signed by Saudi Justice Minister “Shaikh Abdullah bin Muham-mad as-Saudi” during his visit to Tehran. Qashqavi did not give a date for the visit. The Saudi justice minister since February 2009 has been Dr. Mohammed bin Abdul Kareem Al-Eissa.
Qashqavi said Iran has forwarded two copies of the agreement to the Saudi government through official channels as part of its complaint over the execution of Iranian nationals. “Iran has not so far received a reply from the Saudi government,” he said.