DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian-German prisoner Jamshid Sharmahd , who was kidnapped in Dubai in 2020 by Iranian security forces, has been executed in Iran after being convicted on disputed terror charges, the country's judiciary reported Monday. Sharmahd, 69, was one of several Iranian dissidents abroad in recent years either tricked or kidnapped back to Iran as Tehran began lashing out after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers . Sharmahd's execution comes just two days after Israel launched a retaliatory strike against Iran amid the ongoing Mideast wars.
While not directly linking his execution to the attack, the judiciary accused him of being “under orders from masters in Western intelligence agencies, the United States and the child-killing Zionist regime” when allegedly plotting attacks in Iran. The judiciary's Mizan news agency reported his execution took place Monday morning, without offering details. Iran, one of the world's top executioners, typically hangs condemned prisoners before sunrise.
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 wounded over 200 others, as well as plotting other assaults through the little-known Kingdom Assembly of Iran and its Tondar militant wing. Iran also accused Sharmahd of “disclosing classified information” on missile sites of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard during a tele.