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Germany on Wednesday said it was expelling two diplomats from the Iranian embassy in Berlin over the death sentence an Iranian court handed down against an Iranian-German national.
After the death penalty verdict Tuesday against Jamshid Sharmahd, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in a statement Berlin was “declaring two Iranian embassy staff members to be persona non grata” and “ordering them to leave Germany immediately”.
Baerbock said she had summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires over the case of Sharmahd, who supporters say was abducted abroad and forcibly returned to Iran for a show trial.
“We call on Iran to reverse the death penalty for Jamshid Sharmahd and to make it possible for him to have a fair appeal based on the rule of law,” she said.
The Tehran Revolutionary Court convicted Sharmahd, 67, in connection with the deadly bombing of a mosque in 2008, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported.
Iranian authorities announced in August 2020 that Sharmahd, who is also a German national and a US resident, was arrested in what they described as a “complex operation” without specifying how, where or when he was seized.
His family say that he was abducted by the Iranian security services while in transit in Dubai and then brought under duress to the Islamic republic.
‘Kill a hostage’
Baerbock had condemned the ruling on Tuesday as “absolutely unacceptable” and promised a “strong reaction” to the decision, resulting in Wednesday’s expulsion.
“Not only is the death penalty cruel, inhuman and degrading, but Jamshid Sharmahd has never had anything approaching a fair trial,” Baerbock said.
The German foreign minister has been at the forefront of Western voices condemning Tehran’s bloody crackdown on demonstrations and the…
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