Germany orders three Iranian consulates to be closed after an Iranian German prisoner is executed

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

Sharmahd, 69, was put to death Monday in Iran on charges of terrorism, the Iranian judiciary said. That followed a 2023 lawsuit that Germany, the US and international 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 Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already called Iran’s charge d’affaires protested on Tuesday against Sharmahd’s execution. German Ambassador Markus Potzel also protested to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi before being recalled to Berlin for consultations.

Sharmahd was one of many Iranian dissidents abroad in recent years tricked or kidnapped to Iran when Tehran began lashing out after the collapse of the United States the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers including Germany.

Iran accused Sharmahd, who lived in Glendora, California, of planning an attack in 2008 at a mosque that killed 14 people – including five women and a child – and injured more than 200 others, and orchestrated other attacks through Iran’s little-known Kingdom Assembly and its militant Tondar wing.

Iran also accused Sharmahd of “disclosing classified information” about Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard missile sites during a 2017 television program.

His family disputed the charges and had worked for years to have him released.

Iran has pushed back against German protests. Araghchi wrote on social network X on Tuesday that “a German passport does not offer impunity to anyone, let alone a terrorist criminal.”

He accused Baerbock of “gaslighting” 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 rise over the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

The closure of consulates, a diplomatic tool that Germany rarely uses, signals a major deterioration in already poor diplomatic relations. Last year Berlin told Russia to close down four of the five consulates it then had in Germany, after Moscow imposed a limit on the number of staff at the German embassy and related agencies in Russia.

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

“Given this terrible development, the European Union will now consider targeted and significant measures,” he said in a statement, without elaborating.

Sharmahd had been in Dubai in 2020 and attempted to travel to India for a business deal involving his software company. He hoped to get a connecting flight despite the coronavirus pandemic disrupting global travel.

Sharmahd’s family received their last message from him on July 28, 2020. It is unclear how the kidnapping occurred, but tracking data showed that Sharmahd’s cellphone traveled south from Dubai to the city of Al Ain on July 29 and crossed the border into Oman. On July 30, tracking data showed the phone traveling to the Omani port city of Sohar, where the signal stopped.

Two days later, Iran announced it had captured Sharmahd in a “complex operation.” The Ministry of Intelligence published a photo of him blindfolded.

Germany two Iranian diplomats expelled from the country last year due to Sharmahd’s death sentence.