Iran on Monday executed German-Iranian citizen Jamshid Sharmahd, whose family reported he was kidnapped in 2020 in Dubai and forcibly taken to Tehran. This execution sparked condemnation from the European Union and Berlin, which warned that it would have “serious consequences”.
“This morning, the sentence of Jamshid Sharmahd, leader of the terrorist group Tondar (opposition group) was carried out,” reported the Mizan news agency, which belongs to the Iranian judiciary.
Sharmahd, 69, a journalist by profession, was convicted on February 21, 2023 for allegedly leading a terrorist group that planned 23 attacks on Iranian soil.
Iran’s Supreme Court upheld the maximum sentence in April last year. Among the five attacks he allegedly carried out was the bombing of the Seyed al-Shohada mosque in Shiraz in 2008, which killed 14 people and injured 300.
Sharmahd, who has dual German nationality and resides in the United States, was accused of leading the royalist terrorist group “Tondar” (Thunder) and collaborating with the CIA, FBI and Mossad. Tondar is the armed faction of the Monarchical Committee of Iran, an anti-Islamic Republic group based in the US city of Los Angeles that aims to restore Iran’s ancient monarchy.
The convict was arrested in 2020 under unclear circumstances. His family reported that he was kidnapped in Dubai by members of the Iranian security forces and forcibly taken to Iran.
Berlin and EU condemn execution
Germany condemned the “murder” of the German-Iranian citizen. The country’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in a statement that Sharmahd was kidnapped in Dubai and imprisoned for years without a fair trial before being executed.
“The worst thing happened to his family today. “All my empathy goes to his family, with whom we have always been and are in close contact, in the face of this terrible loss,” he said. Baerbock adds that Berlin acted “tirelessly” diplomatically to save Sharmahd and always made it clear to Tehran that the execution of a German citizen would have “serious consequences.”
Sharmahd’s execution demonstrates once again that Iran is, Barbock said, “a regime that has contempt for human life” and that applies the death penalty to its own population and foreign citizens. “This shows that apparently no one is safe, even under the new government,” Baerbock concluded.
The German government has already called the German-Iranian death sentence “unacceptable” and expelled two Iranian diplomats from the country. Tehran responded by expelling two German diplomats for alleged German interference in its internal affairs.
The high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, also condemned this Tuesday “in the strongest possible manner” the execution in Iran of the German-Iranian journalist and assured that the bloc “is considering measures in response.”
In a message shared on the social network Twitter, the head of European diplomacy underlines that “the EU is opposed to the death penalty at any time and in all circumstances” because it constitutes “a violation of the right to life and a denial par excellence.” human dignity. »
“We condemn this murder in the strongest possible way,” writes Borrell in his official account, in which he also assures that “the EU is considering measures in response” and offers his condolences to the family and friends of the executed citizen and its solidarity. with the German government, with which you are in contact.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been accused of using dual nationality or foreign prisoners as a measure of pressure or for prisoner exchanges with other countries, a practice dubbed “hostage diplomacy” by rights groups. human rights.
