Ambassador recalled to Berlin over execution of German citizen in Iran

Germany protested to Iran on Tuesday over the execution of Iranian German prisoner Jamshid Sharmahd, who lived in the US and was kidnapped in Dubai in 2020 by Iranian security forces, and recalled its ambassador to Berlin for consultations.

The foreign ministry wrote on the social network X that Iran’s charge d’affaires in Berlin was summoned to hear “our sharp protest” against Tehran’s action and added that it reserves the right to take “further measures.” It did not elaborate.

At the same time, German ambassador Markus Potzel “protested in the strongest terms against the murder of Jamshid Sharmahd” to the Iranian foreign minister, it said.

German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock then recalled him to Berlin for consultations.

Mr Sharmahd, 69, was put to death in Iran on Monday on terrorism charges, the country’s judiciary said.

That followed a 2023 trial that Germany, the US and international rights groups dismissed as a sham.

He was one of several Iranian dissidents abroad in recent years either tricked or kidnapped back to Iran as Tehran began lashing out after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers including Germany.

Iran accused Mr Sharmahd, who lived in Glendora, California, of planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people – including five women and a child – and wounded more than 200 others, as well as plotting other assaults through the little-known Kingdom Assembly of Iran and its Tondar militant wing.

Iran also accused Mr Sharmahd of “disclosing classified information” on missile sites of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard during a television program in 2017.

His family disputed the allegations and had worked for years to see him freed.

Mr Sharmahd had been in Dubai in 2020, trying to travel to India for a business deal involving his software company.

He hoped to get a connecting flight despite the coronavirus pandemic disrupting global travel.

Mr Sharmahd’s family received their last message from him on July 28 2020. It is unclear how the abduction happened.

But tracking data showed that Mr Sharmahd’s mobile phone travelled south from Dubai to the city of Al Ain on July 29, crossing the border into Oman.

On July 30, tracking data showed the mobile phone travelled to the Omani port city of Sohar, where the signal stopped.

Two days later, Iran announced it had captured Mr Sharmahd in a “complex operation”. The Intelligence Ministry published a photograph of him blindfolded.

Germany expelled two Iranian diplomats in 2023 over Mr Sharmahd’s death sentence.