Iran reportedly executes California man amid ongoing execution spree: 'Murdered by the regime'

The Islamic Republic of Iran on Monday reportedly executed the journalist Jamshid Sharmahd, who was a resident of California and a sharp critic of the regime in Tehran, according to The Associated Press.

The Iranian regime’s judiciary Mizan website announced that the 69-year-old Sharmahd was killed on Monday morning.

Sharmahd’s daughter, Gazelle, who lives in California, previously told Fox News Digital the Iranian regime is "scapegoating an innocent man" over bombing allegations, and spoke of his affinity for the United States.

She told Fox News Digital in August, 2023, "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 and would already have his citizenship if it wasn’t for the terrorists and qualifies as a U.S. national under the Levinson law."

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Iran reportedly executed California resident journalist Jamshid Sharmahd, a sharp critic of the regime in Tehran. (Gazelle Sharmahd)

The Levinson Act defines a "United States national" as a "lawful permanent resident with significant ties to the United States." According to the State Department, the definition applies to non-U.S. citizens. 

The act was named after Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent and private investigator who disappeared from an Iranian island in 2007. Levinson was held hostage and was declared dead in 2020 when he was said to have died in Iranian custody. His family blamed the Iranian regime for his capture and imprisonment.

Fox News Digital reported that the Biden administration faced intense criticism for reportedly abandoning Sharmahd and punting his case over to Germany. Sharmahd is a German citizen. According to critics of Germany's Iran policy, the German Green party foreign minister Annalena Baerbock failed to use her country’s economic and political leverage to secure Sharmahd’s release.

Sharmahd survived an assassination attempt in California in which an Iranian agent was convicted of the planned murder. He was then kidnapped by the Iranian regime in Dubai in 2020 as part of a business trip.

The Iranian regime-controlled website Mizan claimed, without evidence, that Sharmahd committed "multiple terrorist acts at the direction of his masters in the intelligence services of U.S. and Israel."

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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in split with anti-execution protest. (Getty Images)

A U.S. State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that it had seen the German government's statement on his death, noting "We express our sincere condolences to his loved ones. This is the latest abhorrent act in the regime’s long history of transnational repression and accelerating rate of executions." 

The spokesperson added "We’ve been in touch with the German government and European Union and are doing everything we can to support. We will continue to work with the international community to hold the regime accountable for its abuses." 

Lawdan Bazargan, an Iranian-American human rights activist and expert on the clerical regime, told Fox News Digital, "In 1988, after the Islamic Republic of Iran was forced to accept a cease-fire with Iraq, it exacted brutal revenge by executing over 5,000 political prisoners, including my brother, Bijan, who had already served years behind bars. The world stood by in silence, failing to hold the regime accountable. Jamshid Sharmahd’s execution is now another diversion, covering the regime’s failures against Israel and the losses suffered by Hezbollah and Hamas."

She added, "If the world remains silent again, more innocent Iranian prisoners will be killed. The global community must unite against this terrorist regime – Germany and other European nations should expel Iranian diplomats, close the Islamic Republic of Iran's embassies that act as terror safe houses, and declare the IRGC a terrorist organization. The U.S. must also use every tool at its disposal to pressure Iran into halting these executions."

Amnesty International noted that Sharmahd "was convicted of the charge of ‘corruption on earth’ which is not clearly defined in law, and as such contravenes the principle of legality" and termed his trial "grossly unfair."

Jamshid Sharmahd attends his trial at the Revolutionary Court, in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 6, 2022. (Koosha Mahshid Falahi/Mizan News Agency via AP)

The British human rights group added, "Since July 2020, the Iranian authorities have been subjecting him to enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment, including through prolonged solitary confinement and denial of adequate health care."

Tehran’s opaque justice system claims Sharmahd played a role in a 2008 terrorist attack at a mosque in Shiraz, Iran, that left 14 dead and more than 200 injured.  

However, the regime-controlled media outlet Fars News quoted the Iranian National Security Council in 2008 as saying, "The explosion of a bomb or any explosion carried out by opposition elements, be they internal or foreign, is ruled out. The blast was caused by some munitions used in an exhibition for the [Iran-Iraq War] martyrs in the mosque." 

This undated photograph provided by the family of Jamshid Sharmahd shows the 65-year-old man from Glendora, California. Iran abducted Sharmahd, a leader of a California-based Iranian exile group, while he was in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and apparently smuggled him into Oman before bringing him to the Islamic Republic, his family told The Associated Press on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020. Iran has only said they detained Sharmahd in what it describes as a "complex operation." (Sharmahd family via AP)

Jason Poblete, the attorney for Jamshid Sharmahd, wrote on X, "We are receiving reports that the Islamic Republic of Iran has carried out the death sentence against U.S. Legal Permanent Resident and Californian Jamshid Sharmahd." He added that the family requests privacy until the facts are confirmed.

Iranian journalist and human rights activist Vahid Beheshti blasted the Iranian regime on X, stating in part that Jamshid Sharmahd "was murdered today by the regime of the Islamic Republic."

A spokesperson for the German foreign minister sent Fox News Digital a statement from the country's chief diplomat, stating "I condemn the murder of Jamshid Sharmahd by the Iranian regime in the strongest possible terms. Jamshid Sharmahd was abducted to Iran from Dubai, held for years without a fair trial and has now been killed. The very worst has come to pass for his family today. I would like to offer my most profound sympathy to his family, with whom we were and continue to be in the very closest contact, for this terrible loss." 

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She added "We made it crystal clear to Tehran time and again that the execution of a German national would have severe consequences. Jamshid Sharmahd’s execution shows once again what an inhumane regime is in power in Tehran – a regime that punishes its young people, its own population and foreign nationals with death. This underlines that evidently no one is safe in Iran, also under the new government." 

When asked if Germany plans to sanction Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, expel Iran’s ambassador to Germany, and recall Berlin’s ambassador from Tehran, the spokesperson for Baerbock refused to comment. The U.S. and Canada have both classified the IRGC as a terrorist entity.