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Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Iran has executed German-Iranian prisoner Jamshid Sharmahd after he was accused of leading a U.S.-based terror group and convicted on disputed terror charges. "Without a doubt, the divine promise regarding the supporters of terrorism will be fulfilled, and this is a definite promise," Iran's judiciary claimed Sunday as it announced his execution.
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Sharmahd, 69, who was a German citizen and lived in Los Angeles, was sentenced to death last year in Iran after he and his family had repeatedly denied the charges. The U.S. State Department called Sharmahd's trial "a sham" and his treatment in Iran "reprehensible."
On Monday, the State Department condemned the execution.
"The U.S. condemns Iran's execution of German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd, the latest case in the regime's history of transnational repression and disregard of human rights," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement. "We stand with Germany, the Sharmahd family and the international community to hold the regime accountable."
Sharmahd's execution comes two days after Israel launched retaliatory strikes on Iran in response to Iran's ballistic missile barrages on Israel earlier this month amid ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
While Iran's judiciary did not link Sharmahd's execution to the attack, it had accused him of being "under orders from masters in Western intelligence agencies, the United States and the child-killing Zionist regime."
Germany's foreign minister warned Monday that Sharmahd's execution would "have serious consequences."
"I condemn the murder of Jamshid Sharmahd by the Iranian regime in the strongest possible terms," Annalena Baerbock wrote Monday in a post on X. "Abducted from Dubai to Iran and held for years without a fair trial, he was killed today. My deepest sympathy goes out to his family for this terrible loss."
"The killing of Jamshid Sharmahd shows what kind of inhumane regime rules in Iran," Baerbock added. "Even under the new government, no one is safe in Iran."
Human rights organizations said Sharmahd was kidnapped or lured back to Iran in 2020, when he was in Dubai trying to catch a connecting flight to India for a business deal involving his software company. His family received a last message from him on July 28, 2020. Tracking data showed his mobile phone ended up in the Omani port city of Sohar.
Iran announced Sharmahd's capture two days later, claiming he was the leader of a U.S. terror group -- known as Tondar -- along with a photo of him blindfolded.
Iran also accused Sharmahd of "disclosing classified information" on missile sites in 2017 and planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people.
"The entire process, including his arrest, conviction and execution, constitutes a serious violation of international law," said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group.
While Iran claimed Sharmahd confessed to the crimes, his family said he told them he was being tortured.
"They're killing him softly in solitary confinement in this death cell," his daughter Gazelle Sharmahd told the BBC last year after he was allowed to call his family.
"They want a public execution for my dad, to send out this message of terror: that anybody who speaks out against the regime, we can do this to you."
On Monday, Gazelle Sharmahd blasted the German and U.S. governments in a post on X for "ignoring our family," as she called for proof of her father's death, his body to be released and "severe punishment for the Islamic Regime murderers."
