Outrage as Iran executes German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd

Iranian authorities on October 28, 2024 executed German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd, who was detained in 2020. [AFP]

Iran on Monday executed 69-year-old German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd after years in captivity, media in the Islamic Republic said, sparking outrage in Germany and beyond.

Berlin warned of "serious consequences" for Iran's "inhumane regime", while a Norway-based human rights group labelled the execution the "extrajudicial killing of a hostage".

Sharmahd, a German citizen of Iranian descent and a US resident, was seized by Iranian authorities in 2020 while travelling through the United Arab Emirates, according to his family.

Iran, which does not recognise dual citizenship, announced his arrest after a "complex operation", without specifying how, where or when he was seized.

Sharmahd was sentenced to death in February 2023 for the capital offence of "corruption on Earth", a sentence later confirmed by the Iranian Supreme Court.

The Iranian judiciary's Mizan website said on Monday that "the death sentence of Jamshid Sharmahd... was carried out this morning".

He had been convicted of playing a role in a 2008 mosque bombing in the southern city of Shiraz, in which 14 people were killed and 300 wounded.

His family have long maintained that Sharmahd was innocent.

Sharmahd was also accused of leading the Tondar group, which aims to topple the Islamic Republic. Iran classifies it as a terrorist organisation.

'Serious consequences'

Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the killing "shows once again what kind of inhumane regime rules in Tehran: a regime that uses death against its youth, its population and foreign nationals".

She added that Berlin had repeatedly made clear "that the execution of a German national would have serious consequences".

"This underlines the fact that no one is safe under the new government either," she said about the administration of President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was inaugurated in July.

Baerbock expressed her "heartfelt sympathy" for Sharmahd's family, "with whom we have always been in close contact", and said the German embassy in Tehran had worked "tirelessly" on his behalf.

However, Mariam Claren -- the daughter of another German-Iranian detained by Tehran -- charged on X that "this state murder could have been prevented if the German government had wanted to".

The director of Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, called the execution "a case of extrajudicial killing of a hostage aimed at covering up the recent failures of the hostage-takers of the Islamic Republic".

"Jamshid Sharmahd was kidnapped in the United Arab Emirates and unlawfully transferred to Iran, where he was sentenced to death without a fair trial," said Amiry-Moghaddam, whose group closely tracks executions in Iran.

The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights said: "The unlawful abduction of Sharmahd, his subsequent torture in custody, the unfair show trial and today's execution are exemplary of the countless crimes of the Iranian regime."

Tool for fear

Sharmahd grew up in an Iranian-German family and moved to California in 2003, where he was accused of making statements hostile to both Iran and Islam on television.

Mizan said Sharmahd was "a criminal terrorist" who "was hosted by the United States as well as European countries and was operating under the complex protection of their intelligence services".

Iran carries out the second highest number of executions worldwide per year after China, according to human rights groups including Amnesty International.

At least 627 people have been executed this year alone by Iran, according to IHR. Rights groups accuse the authorities of using capital punishment as a tool to instill fear throughout society.

Several other Europeans are still being held in Iran, including at least three French citizens.

European Parliament member Hannah Neumann, who chairs the assembly's Iran delegation, called for a total change in the EU's policy towards Tehran, the Bild daily reported.

"There were some voices who wanted to wait and see how the regime would develop after Pezeshkian's election," Neumann said. "This terrible execution shows us clearly how we should judge this new government."