Germany closes three Iranian consulates after executing Iranian German

Germany has announced that it will close three Iranian consulates in the country in response put to death by Iranian German <a href="https://www.world-today-news.com/hot-irans-turn-to-expel-2-german-diplomats/" title="Hot! Iran's turn to expel 2 German diplomats”>Jamshid Sharmahd. This applies to the Iranian consulates in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich. The Iranian embassy in Berlin will remain open.

Iran accused Sharmahd of planning an attack on a mosque in the Iranian city of Shiraz in 2008. Fourteen people were killed and more than 200 others were injured. Sharmahd lived abroad for years, but was kidnapped in Dubai on a business trip in 2020 and deported to Iran. He was sentenced to death there in 2023, in what both Amnesty International and the United States qualified as a show trial.

Sharmahd came to Germany with his father when he was 7 years old. He later ran a computer shop there. At the beginning of this century he moved to the United States, where he was active in the Iranian opposition. According to Iran, that group was responsible for the attack on the mosque.

Germany responded to the previous condemnation by expelling two Iranian diplomats from the country. As a result of the closure of the consulates, 32 Iranian officials will have to leave Germany, unless they also have German nationality, reports the German news agency DPA.

German Foreign Minister Baerbock says that diplomatic relations between Germany and Iran have reached “more than a low point”.

But the embassy will not be closed. According to Baerbock, Germany would really be doing the regime in Iran a favor. “We know that there is another Iran as well,” said Baerbock, apparently referring to the part of the population that does not support the Iranian regime. In this year’s presidential election , only half of those eligible to vote showed up.

According to DPA, the German government’s response to Sharmahd’s execution has been harsher than expected. Germany took such measures once before. That was because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, after which Germany closed four Russian consulates. However, this only happened 15 months after the invasion, when hundreds of German officers were expelled from Russia.

Iran carries out hundreds of executions every year. An Amnesty International report shows that Iran was responsible for 75 percent of all executions worldwide in 2023.