Iran’s embassy in Stockholm has denied accusations it is recruiting criminal gang members, some of them children, as proxies to commit “acts of violence” against Israeli interests in Sweden, AFP reports.

“Paying attention to the source of this information clearly shows that it is false,” the embassy said in a statement on its website, adding that media coverage based on documents from Israel’s secret services was “false and baseless.”

“Unfortunately, some Swedish media have quoted the false and baseless claims of media and institutions affiliated with this brutal regime (Israel) and published false and fabricated reports against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the Iranian embassy’s statement added.

The embassy said it “expects the Swedish media not to trust the claims and reports published by the Israeli regime” and to work for “an end to the crimes of the Zionist regime in Palestine”.