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 didn’t 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.
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 Sharmahd, who lived in Glendora, California, of planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people — including five women and a child.
