US envoy meets family of German-Iranian sentenced to death in Iran

A US envoy for Iran met on Friday with the family of Iranian-German national Jamshid Sharmahd, who has been imprisoned and sentenced to death in Iran.

“I welcomed the opportunity to meet with Jamshid Sharmahd’s family today. He should have never been detained in Iran, and we hope to see the day he is reunited with his loved ones,” Deputy Special Envoy Abram Paley said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, alongside a photo of him with Sharmahd’s son Shayan and daughter Gazelle.

Sharmahd, a longtime US resident, was arrested in 2020 by Iranian authorities who claimed he headed a group accused of a deadly 2008 bombing in the city of Shiraz, according to state run news agencies ISNA and IRNA.

He was sentenced to death last February for “corruption on Earth”, which sparked widespread condemnation from human rights groups and Western governments. Amnesty International said he had been sentenced after a “grossly unfair trial.”

In April, his death sentence was upheld by the Iranian Supreme Court, a decision condemned by the European Union and the United States.

In a statement following the decision, the European Union said Iranian authorities denied consular access to Sharmahd, despite his German nationality.

Earlier this month, the US State Department called the Iranian regime’s treatment of Sharmahd “reprehensible.”

“He has been sentenced to death after a legal proceeding that has been widely criticized as a sham trial. And we condemn this kind of treatment in the strongest of terms,” Vedant Patel, the US State Department’s principal deputy spokesperson said in a briefing on August 14.

In response to Paley’s statement, Gazelle Sharmahd urged the US government to help free her father.

“I told the acting special envoy I need actions. Our father must be part of whatever is agreed to free US nationals. We will continue to urge the Biden Administration to work with stakeholders to #LeaveNoOneBehind or stop negotiations with my dad’s kidnappers,” she wrote in a statement on X.