Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday accused Germany of ignoring the fact that German-Iranian prisoner Jamshid Sharmahd was accused of “terrorism”.
Araghchi’s remarks came amid a diplomatic crisis between Berlin and Tehran triggered by the death of the dual national in Iran.
Iran on October 28 announced the execution of Sharmahd, 69, but eight days later the judiciary spokesman said Sharmahd had died before the “imminent” execution could be carried out, implying natural causes.
In February 2023, Iran sentenced Sharmahd to death for his involvement in an April 2008 bombing of a mosque in Shiraz, in the south of the country, which killed 14 people and wounded about 300.
After the initial execution announcement, Berlin recalled its ambassador to Iran and closed three Iranian consulates in Germany.
“I regret that this is straining German-Iranian relations, and I wish I could have prevented it,” Araghchi said in an interview published Saturday by the German weekly Der Spiegel.
“But to do that, the German government would have had to cooperate and communicate that this is a terrorist, instead of defending someone who has trampled all humanitarian standards underfoot,” he said, according to Spiegel's English edition published online.
Born in Tehran, Sharmahd immigrated to Germany in the 1980’s then moved to the US in 2003. He was a software developer who worked and wrote for a website linked to the opposition Tondar [“Thunder”] group that seeks to restore the monarchy overthrown in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Iran had accused Sharmahd of being the “ringleader of the group,” which it lists as “terrorist.”
The Iranian judiciary also convicted him of communicating with FBI and CIA officers and of “attempting to contact Israeli Mossad agents,” according to AFP.
Jamshid Sharmahd's daughter has told AFP that she and her family “do not trust anything” Iran says about the circumstances of her father's death.
“If there is a corpse, he needs to be returned and brought back to us as soon as possible,” Gazelle Sharmahd said.
Araghchi told Der Spiegel that, “If his family officially submits a request, we see no obstacles” to returning Jamshid Sharmahd's body.
“The question of whether he was executed or died of natural causes is beside the point,” he said.
He then said the judiciary's statement does not really mention an execution, admitting that the Tehran prosecutor's office is vague on this point.
According to an Arabic translation of the interview published by IRNA, Araghchi said the Iranian judiciary will share more information about Sharmahd’s death if needed.
During the interview, Araghchi also censured what he called the Western “double standards” that he said failed to condemn Israel for its actions in the Gaza Strip.
“I am not calling Hamas, Hezbollah and others, 'proxies.' I call them freedom movements. Supporting them brings no benefits to Iran,” Araghchi told the German publication.
