On the evening of 28 April, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, strongly condemned the decision of the Iranian Supreme Court on 26 April to uphold the death sentence against Jamshid Sharmahd, a German-Iranian national.
The 68-year-old journalist and software engineer was sentenced to death on 21 February after being accused of espionage and of participating in an attack on a mosque in Shiraz that killed 14 people in April 2008.
“The European Union calls upon Iran to refrain from executing the death penalty on Mr Sharmahd, repeal his sentence and ensure Mr Sharmahd be provided the basic rights to which he is entitled under International Law without delay”, Mr Borrell said in a statement on behalf of the EU.
The High Representative stressed that Mr Sharmahd had been detained since 2020, that he had not had access to a lawyer of his choice throughout his detention, and that he had been denied consular access by the Iranian authorities, despite his German nationality.
More broadly, the EU reiterated its deep concern about the situation of EU nationals and Iranian dual nationals who are arbitrarily detained in Iran, in particular those who have been sentenced to death.
Emphasising that the death penalty “violates the inalienable right to life enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment”, Mr Borrell called on Iran to refrain from any executions. The EU also wants Iran to pursue a consistent policy towards the abolition of the death penalty and strictly respect its international obligations, in particular the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which Iran is a party. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)