Daughter urges Berlin to prevent German-Iranian's execution

The daughter of Iranian-German dual national Jamshid Sharmahd, who has been sentenced to death in Iran, said she wants the German government to take "real action" to save her father's life.

On Tuesday, a court in Iran sentenced her father to death for "corruption on Earth." Iran accuses him of leading an armed pro-monarchist group that it says carried out a deadly terror attack at a mosque in Shiraz in 2008.

"I am a nurse, I save lives...and our governments have the same responsibility they have to save our people's lives, our citizens' lives," Gazelle Sharmahd said.

"I have not seen that, and it's very, very late, but I hope that from now on, we will see some real action."

Sharmahd insists her father is innocent and accuses the Iranian government of using the court "to silence people."

"These are false charges. Nothing about it is true," Sharmahd told DW's Brent Goff.

Human rights groups have also rejected the accusations against Sharmahd, who was involved in an exile opposition group Tondar, or Thunder, when previously living in the United States. The group supports and campaigns for the return of Iran's monarchy.

Sharp response from Germany

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has himself described the sentence as "unacceptable."

"The Iranian regime is fighting its own people in every possible way and disregards human rights," Scholz wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

"We condemn this in the strongest possible terms and call on the Iranian regime to withdraw the sentence."

Germany ordered two employees of the Iranian Embassy in Berlin to leave the country and summoned Iran's charge d'affaires over the verdict, the foreign office said.

The German ambassador in Tehran filed a formal protest.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock condemned the sentence and said that Germany "cannot accept the massive human rights abuse of a German citizen."

Gazelle Sharmahd said she was "glad that finally, we can see some actions going on," but added, "it is very late."

"It is a very good first step...Why wasn't it done when a German citizen was kidnapped and taken to Iran and is being tortured for 930 days in isolation?" she asked.

Sharmahd insists Iranian agents kidnaped her father in Dubai in 2020.

"So this is a kidnapping, and it's still not been acknowledged by even Germany or the US that a German citizen was kidnapped. We're not even talking about that," she said

Sharmahd grew up in Iran and Germany and later moved to the United States.

EU condemns Iran and urges judicial review

The European Union on Thursday condemned the sentence.

"We are in close touch with the German authorities. We will make every effort to advocate for a judicial review in full respect of due process rights and the right of appeal. Consular access has to be granted," the bloc said.

Sharmahd said the authorities in Iran had blocked contact with her father since last year.

She said the German foreign office's liaison person could also not tell the family what was happening with Sharmahd.

"We don't have a person there that can answer my questions on this. Is this going to be the first step and the only step, or what's going on?"

AFP material contributed to this report.