Jamshid Sharmahd: Iran executes Iranian-German national after terrorism conviction

US resident was arrested in 2020 and sentenced to death last year

Jamshid Sharmahd was accused of sharing intelligence and plotting attacks in Iran. AFP

Iranian-German Jamshid Sharmahd has been executed in Iran after being convicted on terrorism charges last year, the country's judiciary said on Monday.

Mr Sharmahd held US residency and lived in Glendora, California, before his arrest in 2020. He was accused of sharing information on missile launch sites of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and planning attacks including a 2008 bombing on a mosque that killed 14 people and wounded more than 200.

He was sentenced to death in February last year after being found guilty of planning and directing terrorist acts through the US-based Kingdom Assembly of Iran and its Tondar militant wing. The Kingdom Assembly of Iran runs opposition media outlets abroad.

“Without a doubt, the divine promise regarding the supporters of terrorism will be fulfilled, and this is a definite promise,” the judiciary's Mizan news agency said, in reference to his execution.

Mr Sharmahd's family denied the allegations and are yet to comment on his death. His daughter, Gazelle Sharmahd, told The National in September last year that the US had left her father to die in a deal under which five American citizens were freed from Iranian detention in exchange for the unfreezing of $6 billion of Iranian oil money.

“Our government has failed to explain that when you release an unprecedented amount of money for a few hostages, what do you plan to do now to free the ones you abandon in this negotiation?” Gazelle Sharmahd said then. “How do you ensure my dad will be safe and alive and not murdered now?

Speaking after the five US citizens, detained for years in Iran, were freed and flown to Doha, she said her father had been “left behind to die” by President Joe Biden.

German MP Ulrich Lechte wrote on X: “If it is confirmed that Jamshid Sharmahd was executed, then that is a catastrophe. A murder of a German citizen – convicted in a show trial. I am extremely sorry and angry that we did not do more to get him released.”

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said: "We have repeatedly made it clear to Tehran that the execution of a German citizen will have serious consequences.

"The killing of Jamshid Sharmahd shows once again what an inhumane regime prevails in Tehran: A regime that uses death against its youth, against its own population and against foreign nationals. This underlines that obviously no one is safe, even under the new government."

Amnesty International said the proceedings against Mr Sharmahd had been a “grossly unfair trial” because he had been denied access to an independent lawyer and “the right to defend himself”.

Gazelle Sharmahd said last year that her father, and at least two others who hold either US citizenship or residency, were “ruthlessly left behind” by the US government.

“Jimmy is on death row and the sentence may be carried out if the regime deems it politically expedient,” she said.

“I am happy for the freedom of every unjustly detained, but my happiness is overshadowed by the immense amount of injustice and threat this negotiation has brought upon the … dozens of other hostages that were left behind."