2023-08-23 01:41:00
The daughter of a German citizen of Iranian descent sentenced to death by Tehran pleaded Tuesday for the United States and Germany to act urgently to save him.
Jamshid Sharmahd’s daughter made her case in Washington, including holding a sit-in at the State Department, immediately following the deal reached by the Joe Biden administration to release five US citizens jailed in Iran.
According to his family, Sharmahd, a software developer living in California, was kidnapped in 2020 during a visit to the United Arab Emirates and taken to Iran.
He was sentenced to death for a deadly 2008 explosion at a mosque in the southern city of Shiraz, charges the family describes as ludicrous. Iran’s Supreme Court upheld the death sentence in April.
“What I am asking the United States and Germany is to release my father, to bring him back, to save his life,” his daughter, Gazelle Sharmahd, who lives in California, told AFP. “This is a life or death situation,” she added at a panel discussion.
He expressed his frustration that Berlin and Washington did not see the “urgency” of the situation and were passing the buck in “a ping-pong match of responsibilities.”
“He comes and goes. He’s not my citizen. He doesn’t live here. It’s not my problem, it’s not my problem. And we’re not getting through to them,” he said.
Germany has said it is participating in the case at the highest level and through all channels, and a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry acknowledged that the family is “going through something unimaginable and unbearable.”
But Gazelle Sharmahd insisted that German efforts were focused solely on improving their prison conditions. “What? Does he need better toothpaste before he gets murdered right now?” she questioned.
The US State Department called Iran’s treatment of Sharmahd “reprehensible” but said it was up to Germany to discuss the case of its own citizen.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said all US citizens have been released from prison under the deal, which drew criticism from the rival Republican Party.
Under the agreement, the five US citizens, all of Iranian origin, were released under house arrest and are expected to be released after $6 billion in Iranian oil revenues that had been held up in South Korea were unfrozen. to comply with US sanctions.
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