TEHRAN- Three members of a terrorist group that opposed Iran and was responsible for a deadly incident in the southwest Iranian city of Ahwaz in 2018 have had their jail terms upheld by a Danish appeals court.

On Friday, the Copenhagen Eastern High Court affirmed the prison sentences.

The District Court in Roskilde first sentenced the three men to six, seven, and eight years in 2022 for their roles in inciting terror in Iran and obtaining data for an unidentified Saudi intelligence agency.

They were found guilty of their involvement in the terror incident that targeted a military parade in Ahwaz in September 2018 and resulted in 25 deaths after they were apprehended in Denmark two years prior.

The three are members of the so-called Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), which has been using terrorist acts to advocate for the separation of the Iranian province of Khuzestan, which includes Ahwaz as its capital.

The Danish appeals court decided on Friday as well, declaring the three individuals to be permanently banished from Denmark.

The court determined earlier this week that the three had been obtaining data on people and groups in Denmark and overseas, as well as on Iranian military matters, and transferring it to Saudi intelligence.

Back in 2020, Iran’s intelligence forces arrested the ringleader of a separatist militant group behind the 2018 deadly terror attack in Ahwaz.

Farajollah Chaab, also known as Habib Asyud, was the ASMLA’s ringleader. He was apprehended in November 2020 as a result of a series of specialized and combined measures by Iranian intelligence agents. On May 6, 2023, the terrorist was put to death.

In a statement, the ministry said that Chaab had planned several abortive terrorist operations in Tehran and Khuzestan in recent years, adding that he was planning a new assault when he was taken into custody.

The militant group is directly supported by the intelligence agencies of Saudi Arabia and Israel. It managed terrorist operations inside Iran despite international arrest warrants against its ringleaders, according to the statement.

“The main perpetrator of the bloody terrorist attack on September 22, 2018 in Ahwaz is now in the hands of the Intelligence Ministry,” it added.

In September 2018, the terror outfit claimed responsibility for the attack on military parade in Ahwaz, Khuzestan’s provincial capital. The assault killed 25 people, including members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and civilian bystanders, and injured 70 others.