"show trial"?
German-Iranians face the death penalty - family appeals to Baerbock
Created: 02/20/2022, 22:24
By: Magdalena Furthauer
A German-Iranian faces the death penalty in Iran.
© IMAGO / Future Image / Christoph Hardt
A 66-year-old German-Iranian faces the death penalty in a "show trial," as the family calls it, in Tehran.
She is now turning to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
Tehran – The second trial against the German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd has now begun in a revolutionary court in Tehran*.
If the 66-year-old is convicted, he faces the death penalty.
Tehran: "Show Trial"?
German-Iranians face the death penalty
According to the state news agency IRNA, the German-Iranian has been accused of several attacks, including the 2008 bomb attack on a mosque in southern Iran.
The attack killed 14 people and injured more than 200.
Sharmahd is also accused of espionage as head of a monarchist opposition group.
His Tondar organization, also known as the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, has been campaigning for years for a return to the Shah system, which was overthrown after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
It is not known how many people in Iran* support this monarchist movement.
Iran: Death penalty for Germans threatened - family condemns "show trial"
Sharmahd, who lived in the US for years, was arrested by the Iranian secret service in Dubai in the summer of 2020 and has been imprisoned in Tehran ever since.
His family speaks of a "kidnapping" in an open letter to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock* and in a petition.
He made a stopover at Tehran Airport on his journey from Germany to India, and the family has not heard from him since.
Sharmahd has been in solitary confinement for over 500 days, cannot contact his family and has no access to an "independent lawyer." The family learned about the trial and the impending death penalty on television, the petition continues.
Like Western human rights groups, she vehemently rejects the charges, including “corruption on earth”.
Rather, Sharmahd is in a "show trial" that is partially broadcast in the Iranian state media.
Video: French man sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage in Iran
Tehran: Impending death penalty for German-Iranians - family turns to Foreign Minister Baerbock
The family writes to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on
change.org
: "We are desperately turning to you and asking you to save a human life."
It is "of utmost importance that the federal government reacts immediately in order to prevent the planned state assassination of Mr. Sharmahd." it says in the petition.
An official reaction from Baerbock has not yet materialized.
It is also unclear whether Sharmahd may receive consular assistance from the German embassy in Tehran.
According to
Deutsche Welle
, his organization Tondar states that Sharmahd was born in Tehran in 1955 and grew up in a German-Iranian family before emigrating to the United States in 2003.
According to the family, however, he has German citizenship.
He is now said to be seriously ill and suffering from diabetes.
(mef/dpa) *Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.