By Pishtaz | 2024-11-07

Germany and the European Union (EU) have strongly condemned the Iranian regime's execution of a 69-year-old German-Iranian dissident after years behind bars and warned they were considering retaliatory measures.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Jamshid Sharmahd's execution on October 28 a "scandal" and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned Iran's "inhumane regime" of "serious consequences," AFP reported.

Berlin summoned Iran's charge d'affaires to "convey its strong protest" at the execution. The German ambassador in Tehran also protested to the Iranian foreign ministry and was then recalled to Berlin for consultations.

Berlin "reserved the right to take further measures," the foreign ministry said.

EU top diplomat Josep Borrell said the bloc condemned Sharmahd's "killing in the strongest possible terms" and was "considering measures in response."

A European Commission spokeswoman told reporters that "any measures" could be taken against the Iranian regime, and that they "have to be discussed with all member states."

Sharmahd, a German citizen of Iranian descent and a US resident, was a software engineer who had worked and written for an Iranian opposition group's website based abroad that strongly criticized the Islamic Republic's leadership.

He was seized by Iranian agents in 2020 while traveling through the United Arab Emirates, according to his family.

The Iranian regime accused him of having played a role in a deadly 2008 mosque bombing, and he was sentenced to death in February 2023.

Amnesty International has claimed Sharmahd was forced to confess and that he had told his family he had been tortured in detention, the BBC reported.

'A show trial'

The Iranian judiciary's Mizan website announced the death sentence had been carried out on the morning of October 28.

Sharmahd's execution "is the cruel end of a process that can only be described as a show trial," Amnesty's Germany chapter said.

"These actions show once again that the systematic abuse of fundamental human rights is anchored in the workings of the Iranian judicial system," it said.

The rights group called on Berlin to issue "arrest warrants against all Iranian officials who participated in the crime against Jamshid Sharmahd."

Only China carries out more executions each year than Iran, per Amnesty.

The Iranian regime has executed at least 627 people this year, according to Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights. Rights groups accuse the authorities of using capital punishment as a tool to instill fear throughout society.

Iran Human Rights director of Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam called Sharmahd's execution "a case of extrajudicial killing of a hostage aimed at covering up the recent failures of the hostage-takers of the Islamic Republic."