Iran executes California man after abducting him during international flight layover, convicting him of terror charges

Sharmahd at a hearing in Tehran on Feb. 6, 2022.

 Iran has executed a California resident after Iranian agents abducted him during a flight layover in Dubai four years ago, officials said. 

Jamshid Sharmahd, 69, a German-Iranian dissident who lived in Glendora with his family, was accused by the Islamic Republic of planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people and wounded over 200 others. 

His family disputes the terror charges, claiming Sharmahd is among the many Iranian dissidents who have been kidnapped or tricked into returning to Iran in recent years.  

The German government and the US State Department did not immediately provide a statement on the execution.    

The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported Sharmahd’s execution, accusing him of being “under orders from masters in Western intelligence agencies, the United States and the child-killing Zionist regime.”

“Without a doubt, the divine promise regarding the supporters of terrorism will be fulfilled, and this is a definite promise,” the judiciary said in announcing his execution.

While the agency did not specify the details of Sharmahd’s execution, Iran typically hangs its condemned prisoners at sunrise.

Along with the terror charges, Tehran accused the longtime US resident of plotting several other assaults through the little-known Kingdom Assembly of Iran and its Tondar militant wing.

The Islamic Republic also accused him of “disclosing classified information” on Iran’s missile sites during a television program in 2017. 

Iran began cracking down on dissidents abroad following the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal, with Sharmahd abducted in 2020 while traveling for business involving his software company. 

Sharmahd had a layover in Dubai — a major international transit hub — during a trip to India due to the coronavirus disrupting global travel. 

His family last received a message from him on July 28, 2022, with tracking data showing that he had crossed the border into Oman the following day. 

The signal disappeared on July 30, with Iran revealing two days later that it had captured Sharmahd in a “complex operation.”   

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry then published a photograph of him blindfolded and in custody. 

Amnesty International, a global human rights group, slammed Sharmahd trial as “grossly unfair,” noting that he was denied the right to defend himself in court.  

In a 2021 phone call, Sharmahd told Western officials that he had lost more than 44 pounds in prison and only had two teeth left in his mouth. 

Sharmahd, a father of two, was born in Tehran and grew up in Germany, traveling between the countries in the 80s and 90s before settling in California with his family in 2003. 

The same year, Sharmahd allegedly helped found Tondar for Kingdom Assembly of Iran, an opposition group seeking to restore the monarchy that was overthrown by the Islamic revolution in 1979.

Sharmahd had previously been the victim of an assassination attempt in 2009, which was foiled by the US government and saw an Iranian agent arrested and convicted for the planned murder. 

Sharmahd’s daughter, Gazelle, had spent years advocating for her father’s freedom, repeatedly calling on the Biden administration to help her family.   

“My dad chose the United States as his home, worked hard, followed all the rules, belongs to a family of four generations around him of U.S. citizenship, lived here for 20 years as a tax-paying, law-abiding resident,” Sharmahd told Fox News Digital last year.