A German-Iranian was put on trial in Tehran for months. Now the activist Sharmahd has been sentenced to death. CDU leader Merz is outraged by the guilty verdict – and wants to do everything to ensure that the verdict is not carried out.
After the death sentence against the German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd in Iran, CDU leader Friedrich Merz is calling for crackdown on Tehran. “This judgment must not remain without consequences,” he wrote in a guest commentary for the “Bild” newspaper. Among other things, the Iranian ambassador in Berlin must be expelled from Germany.
“The federal government, Europe, the USA and the United Nations must put Iran in its place – with every means available to the free world,” Merz demanded. “We must do everything to ensure that this unjust sentence is not carried out. This also includes expelling the Iranian ambassador in Berlin from the country.” With the verdict, the “self-appointed revolutionary judges” in Iran “have shown once again how little human life counts for them,” wrote the CDU leader. “They abduct, kidnap, torture and murder to stifle any spark of resistance in the country.”
The Iranian judiciary announced on Tuesday that Sharmahd had been sentenced to death on terrorism charges. The German-Iranian was the leader of a terrorist group and involved in attacks. The court also charged him with cooperation with foreign secret services. The allegations cannot be verified. He was therefore found guilty of “corruption on earth”. The verdict triggered general outrage, and Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock described it as “absolutely unacceptable”.
Born in Tehran, Sharmahd grew up in Germany and emigrated to the United States in 2003. He belongs to the opposition group Tondar (English: Thunder), also known as the “Kingdom Assembly of Iran”. She rejects the political system of the Islamic Republic of Iran and supports the reintroduction of the monarchy in the country.
Iran announced Sharmahd’s arrest in August 2020. According to his family, the 67-year-old German-Iranian, who last lived in the United States, was kidnapped by the Iranian secret service during a stopover in Dubai and taken to Iran. His trial began in February 2022. CDU leader Friedrich Merz announced in early January that he would take over Sharmahd’s political sponsorship.
