Iran executed this Monday the German-Iranian citizen Jamshid Sharmahd, whose family reported that he was kidnapped in 2020 in Dubai and forcibly taken to Tehran. The execution has provoked condemnation from the European Union and Berlin, which has warned that it will have “serious consequences.”
“This morning the sentence of Jamshid Sharmahd, leader of the Tondar terrorist group (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.
The Iranian Supreme Court confirmed the maximum sentence in April last year. Among the five attacks he is alleged to have carried out is the 2008 bombing of the Seyed al-Shohada mosque in Shiraz, which killed 14 people and injured 300.
Sharmahd, with dual German nationality and residence in the United States, was accused of leading the royalist terrorist group “Tondar” (Thunder) and of collaborating with the CIA, the FBI and the Mossad. Tondar is the armed faction of the Monarchy Committee of Iran, an anti-Islamic Republic group based in the American city of Los Angeles that aims to restore the ancient Iranian monarchy.
The convicted man 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 has 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 locked up for years without a fair trial before being executed.
“The worst thing happened to his family today. “All my empathy goes out to his family, with whom we have always been and are in close contact, in the face of this terrible loss,” he says. Baerbock adds that Berlin has acted “tirelessly” at the diplomatic level to save Sharmahd and has always made it clear to Tehran that the execution of a German citizen will have “serious consequences.”
Sharmahd’s execution demonstrates once again that Iran prevails, says Barbock, “a regime that despises human life” and that applies the death penalty to its own population and foreign citizens. “This underlines that apparently no one is safe, not 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 way” 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 emphasizes that “the EU opposes the death penalty at any time and under any circumstances” since it is “a violation of the right to life and denial par excellence.” of human dignity.”
“We condemn this murder in the strongest possible way,” Borrell writes in his official account, in which he also assures that “the EU is considering measures in response” and shows his condolences with the family and friends of the executed citizen and his solidarity with the German Government, with whom you are in contact.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been accused of using dual nationality or foreign prisoners as a pressure measure or for prisoner exchanges with other countries, a practice that has been called “hostage diplomacy” by human rights organizations.
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