Iran Executes Iranian-Born Opponent with Dual Citizenship
On Monday, Iran carried out the execution of Jamshid Sharmahd, a 69-year-old Iranian-born dissident who held German citizenship and resided in the United States. The execution was confirmed by the country’s judiciary and comes four years after Sharmahd was abducted by Iranian agents in Dubai, as reported by his family members.
The Iranian authorities accused Sharmahd of being involved in orchestrating a deadly terrorist bombing in Iran back in 2008, a claim he and his family vehemently denied. His conviction arose from a trial that has faced widespread condemnation from human rights organizations and Western governments, which labeled it as fundamentally unfair and lacking in due process.
Sharmahd was a permanent resident of the United States, living in California at the time of his abduction. He was the operator of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, a relatively obscure group also known as Tondar. Through this platform, he produced videos alleging that the group was actively arming individuals to resist the Iranian regime. Tondar’s stated aim is to topple the current government in Tehran and reinstate the monarchy, and it has claimed responsibility for various attacks within Iran.
Sharmahd’s family has stated that he was forcibly taken by Iranian agents in 2020 while visiting Dubai. Iranian law enforcement claimed to have apprehended him in a “complex operation,” yet they did not disclose specifics about the circumstances of his capture.
- In a separate incident a decade earlier, a man identified by prosecutors as an Iranian agent pleaded guilty in Los Angeles to attempting to hire someone to assassinate Sharmahd. However, this alleged agent managed to flee the United States prior to his sentencing.
- Despite Iran’s history of executing numerous opponents of the regime, Sharmahd’s case is particularly noteworthy due to his dual citizenship and residency status, which attracted significant international scrutiny.
- In the previous year, Iran executed two other dissidents with dual citizenships: Alireza Akbari, a British-Iranian, and Habib Chaab, a Swedish-Iranian, the latter of whom was reportedly abducted in Turkey before being taken to Iran.
The execution of Jamshid Sharmahd serves as a stark reminder of the risks faced by dissidents and the Iranian regime’s willingness to extend its reach beyond its borders.
