A German-Iranian man who was a resident of the US has been sentenced to death in Iran after being accused of organizing a bomb attack in 2008 and collaborating with the US and Israel, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
(Bloomberg) —
A German-Iranian man who was a resident of the US has been sentenced to death in Iran after being accused of organizing a bomb attack in 2008 and collaborating with the US and Israel, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Jamshid Sharmahd led a California-based, pro-monarchy dissident group called the Kingdom Assembly of Iran and campaigned for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic and its theocratic regime.
He was arrested by Iranian intelligence in July 2020 in what they described as a “complex operation,” according to state media reports at the time. Sharmahd’s family told the Associated Press that he was visiting Dubai when abducted by Iranian agents and forcibly taken to Iran.
The sentence comes at a time when Iran’s religious leadership faces unprecedented levels of internal dissent following months of nationwide protests sparked by the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
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Iranian authorities have been heavily criticized and sanctioned by the US and the European Union for using deadly force and executions to crush the unrest.
Sharmahd was the target of an assassination attempt by Iran in 2011, according to CNN. Iran alleges that he was behind a 2008 bomb attack at a mosque in the city of Shiraz that killed 14 people.
Tracking data shared by the family with the AP in August 2020 showed Sharmahd’s mobile phone cross into Oman from the United Arab Emirates at a time when borders were closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. His signal stopped at the port city of Sohar, according to the AP.
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