The German Foreign Ministry announced on X day that it had summoned the Iranian chargé d’affaires on Tuesday, October 29, following the execution in Iran of the Iranian-German dissident Jamshid Sharmahd. A few hours earlier, the head of German diplomacy, Annalena Baerbock, wrote in “that the execution of a German citizen would have serious consequences”.
“At the same time, our ambassador in Tehran (…) He protested with the utmost firmness against the murder of Jamshid Sharmahd”continued the German Foreign Ministry on the social network, specifying that the German ambassador “Then he was recalled to Berlin for consultations.”.
During the night from Monday to Tuesday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz described this execution as “scandal”. On Tuesday, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, condemned “with the greatest firmness” this execution and announced that the European Union was considering “response measures” against Tehran. Amnesty described this execution as “cruel and inhuman”.
Sentenced to death in 2023
On Monday, Iranian authorities executed the naturalized German Iranian dissident, arrested and then imprisoned in 2020, announced Mizan, the judiciary’s news agency. Sharmahd, 69, was sentenced to death in 2023 by a Tehran court for his alleged involvement in an attack on a mosque in Shiraz, southern Iran, that left fourteen dead and about three hundred injured in April 2008.
Germany, which later judged this sentence “absolutely unacceptable”In response, it had expelled two Iranian diplomats stationed in Berlin. Iran took a similar measure against two German diplomats stationed in Tehran. Iran does not recognize dual nationality for its nationals.
Accused of leading the Tondar group
Iran announced in August 2020 the arrest of the dissident, who was then residing in the United States, during a “complex operation”without specifying where, how or when he was detained. According to his family, he was kidnapped by Iranian security services while in transit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and then forcibly returned to Iran.
Born in Tehran, Jamshid Sharmahd emigrated to Germany in the 1980s and then lived in the United States since 2003. He was especially distinguished by his hostile statements against the Islamic Republic on satellite channels in Persian.
Mr. Sharmahd was also accused of running the Tondar group (” thunder “in Persian), classified as an organization “terrorist” for Iran. This group, also known as the Monarchist Association of Iran, claims to want to overthrow the Islamic Republic. Iranian justice also accused Mr. Sharmahd of having established contacts with “FBI and CIA officers” and have “He tried to contact Israeli Mossad agents”.
