In July 2020, Jamshid Sharmahd, a dual Iranian-German citizen and resident of the U.S., was abducted by Iranian authorities from the UAE and brought to Iran. There, on February 21, 2023, he was sentenced to death for "corruption on earth through planning and leading terror operations" for his alleged role as leader of the Tondar ("Thunder") terror organization operating in Iran and his alleged responsibility for the murder of many Iranians in terror operations.
Sharmahd's family says that he was tortured in prison to extract false confessions from him.
Jamshid Sharmahd in 2022 (Source: Tasnim)
The following is a summary of a February 23, 2023 op-ed in the regime mouthpiece Kayhan, by the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Hossein Shariatmadari, about the case.
In his February 23, 2023 op-ed in Kayhan, Hossein Shariatmadari accused the German government of sending Sharmahd to Iran in 2008 to carry out terror attacks there. Shariatmadari explained in the article that "there is no doubt that the German government assigned Jamshid Sharmahd to carry out terror operations," and that in his confession "Sharmahd revealed the German Embassy's role in assassinations and killings."
Shariatmadari even claimed that Germany's announcement, on February 22, 2023, of its expulsion of two Iranian diplomats in response to the death sentence for Sharmahd was a preemptive action "aimed at erasing the tracks of the German government in this terror operation" and "also to prevent Iran from prosecuting the German ambassador and complaining about Germany in the International Court!"
Also in the op-ed, Shariatmadari called on the Iranian authorities "in the first stage, to imprison German Embassy personnel and to prosecute the intelligence officer at the German Embassy, who was the liaison between Jamshid Sharmahd and the ([German federal intelligence service] BND) and whose identity was exposed by Sharmahd.
"The next stage must be a complaint about the German government in the International Criminal Court for the crime of sending terrorists and slaughter against the oppressed people of our country."[1]
[1] Kayhan (Iran), February 23, 2023.
