(CNN) An Iranian state news journalist fled from Foreign Minister Javad Zarif's press pool and applied for residency in Sweden last week, according to authorities.

Amir Tohid Fazel, a journalist for the hardline Moj News Agency, said in an interview with Swedish national broadcaster SVT that he claimed "asylum" because a colleague from Tehran warned him that four Iranian government agents had visited his office with an arrest warrant.

Fazel said he had published a list of "very prominent members of the Iranian government who have dual citizenship or permanent residency of countries that the government considers an enemy of Iran, such as the US, England and Canada."

While Fazel said he only reproduced part of a much larger list that he received from an unnamed member of Iran's parliament, he added that after publication the Iranian government officially announced that they would take legal action against him.

"I knew they were coming after me," he told STV.

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