TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei announced at a press briefing Monday that Tehran had summoned the Swedish ambassador over the arrest in Stockholm of an Iranian cleric identified as Mohsen Hakimollahi. 

Hakimollahi, 63, is the director of the Imam Ali Islamic Center in the Swedish capital. Sweden's security agency SAPO said the cleric posed a national security threat and accused the Shiite center of spying on Swedish citizens and the Iranian diaspora. Hakimollahi is currently facing deportation. 

According to a report by the IRNA state news agency, Baghaei noted that Tehran had conveyed its protest to the Swedish government over the arrest, which he described as "arbitrary" and in violation of international laws and human rights. 

Rejecting the allegations leveled against the cleric and the center as "baseless," Baghaei argued that Sweden's move had been provoked by "destructive leverage from third parties," an explanation Iranian authorities have used in similar cases in reference to Israel and exiled Iranian opposition groups.