Iran
Iranian-German national Jamshid Sharmahd appears in court in Tehran in February 2022. Photo: Mizan News Agency/AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the death sentence for a German national accused of heading a pro-monarchist group responsible for a deadly bombing in Iran in 2008.
Jamshid Sharmahd is a German journalist of Iranian descent who was abducted from Dubai in July 2020 by agents of the ministry of intelligence and was taken to Iran after being accused of being involved in a 2008 bombing in Shiraz which killed 14 people.
He was sentenced to death in February, with his supporters calling on Germany to save the journalist, as they claimed his innocence.
“According to the latest reports, the sentence of the person in question [Sharmahd] has been confirmed in the Supreme Court,” Iran’s judiciary's spokesperson Masoud Setayeshi told reporters during a presser on Wednesday.
Setayeshi added that legal measures will be taken against the journalist once the court decides to do so.
Germany in February said that it was expelling two Iranian diplomats, asking them to leave the country immediately, in reaction to the Islamic republic’s sentencing of Sharmahd, which Berlin referred to as a “massive violation of the rights of a German national.”
Iran responded the following week by expelling two German diplomats, declaring them personae non grata.
There are a number of dual and foreign nationals being held in Iranian prisons on charges of spying for foreign governments with rights groups accusing Tehran of using them as bargaining chips to gain concessions from world powers.
Iranian-British dual national Alireza Akbari was executed by Iran in January on charges of spying for the United Kingdom’s intelligence agency and threatening the Islamic republic’s internal and external security.
The execution rate in Iran increased by over 50 percent in 2022, with the regime carrying out the death sentence against at least 500 people during that year, compared to 2021’s 330, according to a UN report from February.
The country executed at least 94 people in January and February. Nearly a third of them were minorities, according to research from Amnesty International and Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, an Iranian human rights monitor.
Jamshid Sharmahd is a German journalist of Iranian descent who was abducted from Dubai in July 2020 by agents of the ministry of intelligence and was taken to Iran after being accused of being involved in a 2008 bombing in Shiraz which killed 14 people.
He was sentenced to death in February, with his supporters calling on Germany to save the journalist, as they claimed his innocence.
“According to the latest reports, the sentence of the person in question [Sharmahd] has been confirmed in the Supreme Court,” Iran’s judiciary's spokesperson Masoud Setayeshi told reporters during a presser on Wednesday.
Setayeshi added that legal measures will be taken against the journalist once the court decides to do so.
Germany in February said that it was expelling two Iranian diplomats, asking them to leave the country immediately, in reaction to the Islamic republic’s sentencing of Sharmahd, which Berlin referred to as a “massive violation of the rights of a German national.”
Iran responded the following week by expelling two German diplomats, declaring them personae non grata.
There are a number of dual and foreign nationals being held in Iranian prisons on charges of spying for foreign governments with rights groups accusing Tehran of using them as bargaining chips to gain concessions from world powers.
Iranian-British dual national Alireza Akbari was executed by Iran in January on charges of spying for the United Kingdom’s intelligence agency and threatening the Islamic republic’s internal and external security.
The execution rate in Iran increased by over 50 percent in 2022, with the regime carrying out the death sentence against at least 500 people during that year, compared to 2021’s 330, according to a UN report from February.
The country executed at least 94 people in January and February. Nearly a third of them were minorities, according to research from Amnesty International and Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, an Iranian human rights monitor.
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