Germany has protested to Iran in connection with the execution of the German citizen of Iranian origin Jamshid Sharmahd, kidnapped in Dubai in 2020 by the Iranian security forces, and recalled its ambassador to Berlin for consultations, the Associated Press reported.
The German Foreign Ministry wrote on the social network "Ex" that Iran's chargé d'affaires in Berlin had been summoned to hear "our strong protest". against Tehran's actions, and added that it reserved the right to take "further measures," without elaborating.
At the same time, the German ambassador Markus Potzel "expressed the strongest protest against the murder of Jamshid Sharmahd" to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the announcement said. German Foreign Minister Analena Berbock then recalled Potzel to Berlin for consultations.
Sharmahd, 69, was executed in Iran on Monday on terrorism charges, the country's judiciary said. This followed a trial in 2023 that Germany, the US and international human rights groups dismissed as a sham.
Sharmahd was one of several Iranian dissidents abroad who were lured or kidnapped back to Iran in recent years after Tehran began settling its accounts with them following 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 - and injured more than 200 people, and of planning other attacks through the little-known organization "Assembly of the Kingdom of Iran" and its armed wing "Tondar".
Iran also accused Sharmahd of "revealing classified information" during a 2017 TV program. for missile sites of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.