March 25, 2022
The regime has put on trial a second expat Iranian dissident whom it lured to the Middle East and then kidnaped from abroad.
Jamshid Sharmahd, 66, is a German-Iranian dual national by birth who was living in Glendora, California, and was active in the monarchist Kingdom Assembly of Iran. Iran says he led Tondar, the militant wing of the group, and fomented terrorist acts inside Iran. His family said he was only the spokesperson for the Kingdom Assembly.
A short time before Sharmahd went on trial, February 6, Iran claimed it had just arrested Sharmahd’s Number Two in Tondar, whom it identified only as “Masmatus,” presumed to be a code name.
A few months ago, the regime put on trial Habib Chaab, an Arab ethnic from Khuzestan who was a leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA), which seeks to make Khuzestan province into the independent state of Arabestan.
Chaab was lured to the Middle East and arrested in November 2020. Sharmahd had flown to Dubai and was reportedly awaiting a connecting flight to India on business for his computer software company when he was spirted away by Iranian agents in July 2020.
The Tehran prosecutor’s office said in its indictment that Sharmahd had confessed to “attempting the bombing of the Sivand Dam in Shiraz, plotting to assassinate the person in charge of the dam project, a 2009 explosion in the shoe shop at Ayatollah Khomeini’s tomb, and preparing a bomb to blow up the seminary founded by Ayatollah Mohammad-Reza Golpayegani.”
The prosecutor said Sharmahd worked on 23 terrorist schemes, but was successful in only five and failed at the others.
The prosecution said Sharmahd confessed to having relations with both the FBI and CIA while he lived in the United States after 2003.
Sharmahd’s trial is being overseen by Judge Abol-Qassem Salavati, who handles many political trials in Tehran.
Meanwhile, the trial of Chaab continued with press reports saying Amin Vaziri, the prosecutor, said Chaab had admitted the Saudi intelligence service pushed to unite all terrorist and separatist movements in Iran under a single umbrella organization to counter Iran.
Vaziri said Chaab had cooperated with other anti-Iran terror groups, including PJAK, an Iranian Kurdish group, and Jaish ul-Adl, a Baluchi group. Together with ASMLA, they are the three most active and damaging ethnic separatist groups in the country.
In September 2018, ASMLA claimed responsibility for an attack on a military parade in Ahvaz, Khuzestan’s provincial capital, which killed 25 people, including members of the Pasdaran and civilian bystanders, and injured 70 others.
The first Iranian dissident expat to be lured back to the Middle East and then packed off to Iran was Ruhollah Zam, who ran an anti-regime news service based in France. He was tried, convicted and executed.
