Germany orders closure of 3 Iranian consulates after German-Iranian prisoner Jamshid Sharmahd is executed. Latest Updates – India TV

Germany on Thursday ordered the closure of all three Iranian consulates in the country in response to the execution of German-Iranian prisoner Jamshid Sharmahd, who lived in the United States and was kidnapped in Dubai in 2020 by Iranian security forces.

Sharmahd, 69, was sentenced to death in Iran on Monday on charges of terrorism, Iranian justice announced. This followed a 2023 trial that Germany, the US and international human rights groups dismissed as a sham.

The decision to close the Iranian consulates in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich, announced by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, leaves the Islamic Republic with only its embassy in Berlin. The German Foreign Ministry had already summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires on Tuesday to protest Sharmahd’s execution. German Ambassador Markus Potzel also protested to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi before being recalled to Berlin for consultations.

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

Iran also accused Sharmahd of “revealing classified information” on the missile sites of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard during a television program in 2017. His family disputed the allegations and worked for years to see him released

Iran rejected Germany’s protests. Araghchi wrote on social network X on Tuesday that “a German passport does not give impunity to anyone, let alone a terrorist criminal.”

He accused Baerbock of “gassing” and wrote that “your government is complicit in the ongoing Israeli genocide.”

Germany is a staunch ally of Israel and has sharply criticized Iranian attacks on Israel as tensions spiral over the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. The closure of consulates, a diplomatic tool Germany rarely uses, signals a major downgrade in already tenuous diplomatic relations. Last year, Berlin told Russia to close four of the five consulates it then had in Germany after Moscow set a cap on the number of staff at the German Embassy and related bodies in Russia.

On Tuesday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said “the execution of a European citizen seriously damages relations between Iran and the European Union”.

“In view of this appalling development, the European Union will now consider targeted and significant measures,” he said in a statement, without elaborating.

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

Sharmahd’s family received the last message from him on July 28, 2020. It is unclear how the kidnapping took place, but tracking data showed that Sharmahd’s mobile phone traveled south from Dubai to the city of Al Ain on the 29 July, crossing the border into Oman. On July 30, tracking data showed the phone traveled to the port city of Sohar in Oman, where the signal stopped.

Two days later, Iran announced that it had captured Sharmahd in a complex operation. The Ministry of Information published a photo of him blindfolded. Germany expelled two Iranian diplomats last year over Sharmahd’s death sentence.