Outrage as Iran executes German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd

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