Iran has convicted dissident Jamshid Sharmah on terrorism charges

Iran has executed German-Iranian dissident Jamshid Sharmahd, following his conviction for “leading terrorist activities”, state media reported.

Sharmahd was sentenced to death last year for “worldly corruption”, accused of leading a US-based pro-monarchy group.

He has denied the charges, his family has maintained that he is only a spokesman.

Germany’s foreign minister said Berlin has repeatedly warned Tehran that the killing of a German citizen “will have serious consequences”.

“The killing of Jamshid Sharmahd shows what kind of brutal regime rules (in Iran),” Annalena Baerbock told X.

Human rights groups condemned the killing of Sharmahd, who lived in the US.

“This whole process, including his arrest, conviction, and execution, is a serious violation of international law,” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organization.

Sharmahd is believed to have been kidnapped by Iranian agents in Dubai in 2020 and then forcibly taken to Iran via Oman.

In August 2020, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence announced his arrest following a “difficult operation”, without providing details.

Another human rights organization, Amnesty International, says that Sharmahd was forced to confess and told his family that he was tortured in custody.

It said Sharmahd created a website to publish statements from the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, including claims of explosions inside Iran.

A little-known group based in the US, also known as Tondar (Persian for Thunder), wants to restore the monarchy that was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

However, Iranian authorities said he was Tondar’s leader and had “planned 23 terrorist attacks”, “five of which were successful”, including the 2008 Shiraz mosque bombing that killed 14 people.

They published a video in which he appeared blindfolded and confessed to various crimes.

Sharmahd was sentenced to death in February last year.

Sharmahd’s daughter, Gazelle, later asked German prosecutors to investigate the Iranian court’s alleged mistreatment of her father.

“They are there killing him slowly in solitary confinement in this death row,” he told the BBC in July 2023, after being allowed to call his family for the first time in two years.

But he added: “They want my father to be killed in public, to send this terrible message: that anyone who speaks badly of the state, we can do this to you.”

He was executed on Sunday, after approval by the Supreme Court, the Iranian judicial website Mizan said on Monday.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the action “disgraceful” and said “Jamshid Sharmahd did not even get a chance to answer the charges”.