An Iranian court on Tuesday sentenced to death on terror charges an Iranian-German national who supporters say was abducted in the Gulf and forced to return to Iran to try to perform.
Tehran’s Revolutionary Court convicted Jamshid Sharmahd in connection with the deadly mosque bombing in 2008, Mizan Online news agency reported.
Iranian authorities announced in August 2020 that Sharmahd, 67, who is also a German citizen and US citizen, was arrested in what they described as a “complex operation” without specifying how, where or when he was arrested.
His family said he was abducted by Iranian security services while in transit in Dubai and then taken to Iran.
Also read: Iran sentences three to death over Amini protests
“They kidnapped Jamshid Sharmahd and now they have sentenced him to death after a fake trial,” said the head of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group, Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam.
“Actually, the Islamic republic threatened to kill the hostages,” he said.
German opposition MP and member of the foreign affairs committee Norbert Roettgen tweeted that “he was kidnapped by the regime in Iran and is now sentenced to death also to pressure Germany”.
“The current government must be clear that it does not accept this arbitrary decision and is fighting for its life,” he wrote on Twitter.
– ‘Chasing my father’ –
Sharmahd is accused by Iran of being the leader of the Tondar group which aims to overthrow the Islamic republic and is banned as a terrorist organization by Iran.
Mizan said Sharmahd planned to carry out 23 “terrorist” acts, which succeeded in five, including the bombing of a mosque in the southern city of Shiraz on April 12, 2008, which killed 14 people and injured 300 others.
Prosecutors also accused Sharmahd of having made contact with “FBI and CIA officers” and “attempted to contact Israeli Mossad agents”.
Also Read: Protest-hit Iran sentences four to prison for phone strike
In 2009, Iran convicted and hanged three people for the Shiraz bombing, claiming they had ties to a monarchist group and took orders from an “Iranian CIA agent” based in the US to try to assassinate a senior official in Iran.
Sharmahd’s family has scoffed at the allegations.
“All these accusations are false accusations. They are scapegoating my innocent father,” his daughter Gazelle told AFP during the trial last year.
The family said Sharmahd, a software designer, was involved in Tondar, also known as the Royal Assembly of Iran and designed its website, the family said.
– ‘Another victim’ –
Mizan said the Iranian-born Sharmahd could appeal against the death sentence in the supreme court.
The sentence was announced a day after the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran in response to protests sparked by the mid-September death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd held for allegedly violating the country’s strict rules. dress code for women.
The move, which targets 32 individuals and two entities, is the fifth package of sanctions imposed by the bloc on Iran in recent months.
Activists have accused Iran of kidnapping regime opponents in an attempt to bring them to trial in Iran on charges that could carry the death penalty.
Also Read: Iran upholds two death sentences, issues more over protests
The family fears it will suffer the same fate as France-based Ruhollah Zam, who was executed in December 2020 after leaving Paris in October 2020 for Iraq, where supporters say he is being held by Iran.
“Don’t let another person like Ruhollah Zam become a victim of the Islamic republic’s kidnapping and rope,” said the United for Zam group set up in her memory.
Sharmahd is one of two dozen foreign nationals held by Iran that activists and now Western governments describe as “hostages” held to extract concessions from the West.
Another foreign national at risk of hanging is dual Swedish-Iranian citizen Ahmadreza Djalali who has been detained since 2016 and in 2017 sentenced to death on espionage charges his family denies.
In December, the court announced that Iranian-Swedish dissident Habib Chaab, who disappeared during a visit to Turkey in October 2020, had been sentenced to death on terror charges.
Also read: Young Iranian faces death penalty for protesting
In mid-January, he executed Iranian-British dual citizen Alireza Akbari, a former Iranian official, after convicting him of spying.