The family of the late Iranian-German prisoner Jamshid Sharmahd showed deep distrust in what Iran’s government had to say about his fate. The 69-year-old was told by Tehran last week to have been executed. Still, later, an Iranian judiciary spokesperson said Sharmahd had died in prison before his death sentence could be carried out.
We don’t believe anything. We need proof from an independent investigation conducted outside of Iran,” Sharmahd’s daughter Gazelle said in an interview with the AFP. She maintained that Germany and the United States had to investigate and explain how her father died.
“Immediately, we asked, who has seen my father, who murdered my father? We need responsible governments to do their jobs and investigate,” Gazelle said. Whatever the immediate cause of death, the treatment her father was subjected to over his 1,400 days in solitary confinement constituted murder, she said.
“If Germany and the US believe this statement by the Iranian judiciary washes their hands of any responsibility or obligation, they are sadly mistaken,” she said. Gazelle further added that if her father’s death wasn’t an execution, it was even more alarming. “This is murder, and they are complicit,” she said.
Jamshid Sharmahd was an Iran-Germany dual national, US-based software engineer, and a permanent resident in the US. He was also reported to have developed a website for an opposition movement that hosted radio broadcasts critical of the Iranian regime. Sharmahd was tried and convicted after Iranian agents kidnapped him in July 2020 from the United Arab Emirates and forcibly took him to Iran.
He was accused during his trial of playing a role in a 2008 bombing of a mosque in Shiraz, which killed 14 people, as well as spying. The United Nations Working Group has dismissed these charges. There has been a lack of transparency about his case, and no reports indicating detainees had witnessed him.
However, foreign nationality holders often interact inside Tehran’s Evin prison. During this detention, Sharmahd could make several phone calls to his family but was never allowed to disclose his location. This has raised serious concerns about his health and wellbeing.
