Iran official claims Iranian-German prisoner died before he could be executed

An Iranian official claimed on Tuesday that Iranian-German prisoner Jamshid Sharmahd died before Tehran could execute him — directly contradicting the country’s earlier announcement he had been put to death.

The comment by Asghar Jahangir comes as Germany shut down all three Iranian consulates in the country over Mr Sharmahd’s death.

The judiciary’s Mizan news agency quoted Mr Jahangir as saying: “Jamshid Sharmahd was sentenced to death, his sentence was ready to be carried out, but he passed away before implementation of the sentence.”

He did not elaborate. His remarks were made to a newspaper after a weekly news conference.

Authorities in Germany and the US, where Mr Sharmahd once lived, could not be immediately reached for comment. Iran had said it executed Mr Sharmahd on October 28. He was 69.

Iran accused Mr 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 more than 200 others, as well as plotting other assaults through the little-known Kingdom Assembly of Iran and its Tondar militant wing.

Iran also accused Mr Sharmahd of “disclosing classified information” on missile sites of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard during a television programme in 2017.

His family disputed the allegations and had worked for years to see him freed after he was apparently kidnapped while on a layover in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Mr Sharmahd had been in Dubai in 2020, trying to travel to India for a business deal involving his software company. He hoped to get a connecting flight despite the coronavirus pandemic disrupting global travel.

Mr Sharmahd’s family received their last message from him on July 28, 2020. It is unclear how the abduction happened, but tracking data showed that Mr Sharmahd’s mobile phone travelled south from Dubai to the city of Al Ain on July 29, crossing the border into Oman.

On July 30, tracking data showed the phone travelled to the Omani port city of Sohar, where the signal stopped.

Two days later, Iran announced it had captured Mr Sharmahd in a “complex operation”. The Intelligence Ministry published a photograph of him blindfolded.