Report: Iran returns body of German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd
The measure was taken as part of "legal and diplomatic proceedings" and at the request of Sharmahd's family, SNN reported, citing the Iranian judiciary.
It was initially unclear whether Sharmahd's body had already been flown out of the country, or just handed over to the German diplomatic mission in Tehran.
Iran's judiciary announced Sharmahd's execution at the end of October. He had been sentenced to death in early 2023 in a controversial trial following allegations of terrorism, which relatives and human rights activists categorically rejected as baseless.
Iran's judiciary later declared that Sharmahd had not been executed but had died in custody.
Germany's Foreign Office said that the German government was working intensively at a high level for the repatriation of Sharmahd's body, and remains in close contact with the family members.
In response to Sharmahd's death, the German government summoned the German ambassador to Iran back to Berlin for consultations and closed all three Iranian consulates in Germany.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock justified the move as a response to the "inhumane actions" of the Iranian regime.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Death toll soars in Russian strike on Kyiv
Among the dead were five children, the youngest two years old, and 159 were injured, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on Telegram. He said that in July alone, Russian forces launched about 3,800 drones, 260 missiles — including 128 ballistic missiles — and 5,100 guided bombs. In June, an overnight attack killed 28 people. Advertisement Zelensky called the overnight attack on Thursday 'a vile blow' and said it demonstrated that additional pressure on Moscow was needed and that Ukraine's Western allies should tighten their sanctions regime against the Kremlin. President Trump has been threatening to do just that. 'No matter how much the Kremlin denies their effectiveness, [the sanctions] are working and must be stronger — to hit everything that allows such strikes to continue,' Zelensky wrote, after receiving a report on the strike from Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. Trump appears ready to slap additional sanctions on Moscow in a bid to pressure Russia to accept a ceasefire. On Thursday, Trump called the airstrikes on Ukraine 'disgusting' and 'a disgrace,' though he questioned whether sanctions would influence Russian President Vladimir Putin. Advertisement 'I don't know that sanctions bother him,' he said. 'I don't know if that has any effect, but we're going to do it.' The Patriot transfer to Ukraine was made possible by an agreement with the US that Germany would be 'the first nation to receive newly produced, latest-generation Patriot systems at an accelerated pace,' which Berlin would pay for, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in a statement. The delivery to Ukraine would also include 'additional system components within the next two to three months,' Pistorius said. Ukrainian officials have not commented on the German transfer. However, Patriot antiaircraft systems are highly valued for their ability to shoot down cruise and ballistic missiles, which Russian forces have been firing at Ukrainian targets in clusters, combined with waves of drones, to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. Ukraine's air force said that Thursday's overnight attack involved more than 300 drones across Ukraine, 21 of which struck targets, and Kyiv bore the brunt. The Ukrainian military also said that eight cruise missiles were fired, five of which penetrated its air defenses. Media reports indicated that all the missiles were directed at Kyiv. One missile partially destroyed an apartment block in a western district of the capital, burying more than a dozen people under rubble. Trump also has been threatening secondary sanctions that would penalize buyers of Russian oil, mainly China and India, potentially starving Russia of funds for its war machine, but so far, he has refrained from imposing them, arguing this could alienate Moscow and reduce hopes of reaching a peace deal. Advertisement Russia, meanwhile, has launched deadly attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, while grinding forward and seizing more territory in eastern Ukraine. Russia has struck playgrounds, maternity hospitals, apartment buildings, civilian buses, and other civilian targets. Russia's Ministry of Defense insists that Russia attacks military targets with 'precision strikes.' Earlier in the week, Trump tightened the deadline to 10 days from 50 days for Russia to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine or face new sanctions. Trump said that his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, would fly to Russia to meet with officials after visiting Gaza and Israel. Witkoff has met Putin four times in solo meetings in a bid to broker a peace deal, eschewing State Department experts on Russia, and using an interpreter supplied by the Kremlin on at least one occasion. He initially appeared to credit Putin with a will to end the war in return for keeping the territory Russia has seized and shutting Ukraine out of NATO. Those hopes proved overly optimistic. On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a radio interview that senior US officials were in contact with their Russian counterparts this week but made 'no progress' on securing a ceasefire. Trump has suggested that he is losing patience with Putin after phone conversations in which Putin appeared conciliatory, only to launch new airstrikes, while Ukraine has accepted Trump's call for a ceasefire, Rubio suggested. 'And I think what bothers the president the most is he has these great phone calls where everyone … claims, 'Yeah, we'd like to see this end, if we could find a way forward,' and then he turns on the news and another city has been bombed, including those far from the front lines,' Rubio said. Advertisement 'So, at some point, [Trump has] got to make a decision here about how much to continue to engage in an effort to do ceasefires if one of the two sides is not interested in one,' Rubio said. On Friday, Putin said that any disappointments in the progress of peace talks arose from 'excessive expectations.' 'Negotiations are always in demand and always important, especially if it is a desire for peace. I evaluate them positively overall,' Putin told journalists after meeting Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at Valaam island in Karelia, in northwest Russia. Putin said Russia's conditions had not changed. Those conditions have long been tantamount to Ukraine's surrender. Putin said Russia needed 'a lasting and durable peace on good basic foundations that would satisfy both Russia and Ukraine and would guarantee security of both countries.'
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump says he will fire lead official on economic data as stocks shudder
US President Donald Trump said he would fire the head of the agency charged with publishing some of America's most closely watched economic data, after a weaker-than-expected jobs report stoked further alarm about his tariff policies. His decision to move forward with plans to sharply raise tariffs on goods from countries around the world had already sent financial markets in the US shuddering. In the US, the three major indexes dropped, with the S&P falling 1.9% by mid-afternoon. That followed earlier sell-offs in Europe and Asia, as investors dumped shares of firms such as South Korean steel manufacturers and German truck-maker Daimler. Trump's plans leave most goods coming into the US facing new taxes of 10% to 50%, depending on their origin, and will lift tariff rates in the US to the highest levels in nearly a century. Trump says the measures will rebalance global trade and boost US manufacturing. But analysts say they will raise prices for businesses and consumers in the US and weigh on the US and global economies, as sales, hiring and investment slow. This week has revived fears about economic damage, as companies update investors on their costs and new data points to slowdown in the US. Employers in the US added just 73,000 jobs in July, according the monthly Labor Department report published on Friday. It also dramatically revised estimates of job growth in May and June, with far fewer gains than previously thought. "The economic data since the Liberation Day announcements did not reflect that sharp deterioration in economic activity, or at least not in obvious ways. This was the week that changed," analysts at Wells Fargo wrote on Friday. The revisions appeared to spur Trump to fire the commissioner of labor statistics, Erika McEntarfer, in a post on social media. "We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY," he wrote on social media, referring to the large revisions to the May and June jobs numbers. Trump also lashed out at Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, whom he has angrily criticised in recent months. Shares in the US opened lower in the morning, with losses accelerating over the course of the afternoon. France's CAC 40 closed down 2.9%, while German's DAX fell 2.6%. In the UK, the FTSE fell 0.7%. Earlier the leading index in South Korea fell 3.8%, the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong dropped 1% and Japan's Nikkei fell 0.6%. When Trump first put forward his plans in April, shares in the US tumbled more than 10% in a week, the concerns spreading to the dollar and bond markets. The stock market recovered after he suspended some of the most drastic measures, leaving in place a less punishing, more expected 10% levy. In recent weeks, indexes in the US have been trading around all-time highs. "The reality is Trump got emboldened by the fact that markets came right back," Michael Gayed, portfolio manager for The Free Markets ETF told the BBC's Opening Bell. "Now he's going to try his luck again." The latest measures are less extreme than what Trump first put forward in April, when goods from key players in southeast Asia, such as Vietnam, were facing tariff rates of more than 40% and a tit-for-tat exchange with China drove US tariffs on its exports surge to at least 145%. But the tariffs still make for a radical change for the US, for decades a champion of free trade. The plans include a minimum 10% tax on most goods entering the US, with major trade partners, including the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam face tariffs in the range of 15% to 20%. Goods from China are set to facing new 30% levies, while exports from some other countries, including Switzerland and Laos face even higher duties. The changes, which are set to go into effect on 7 August, will lift the average tariff rate to roughly 18%, up from less than 2.5% as recently as January. Investors had been taking the impact of tariffs in stride, sending shares in the US and elsewhere to new highs in recent weeks. Mr Gayed said markets had become less sensitive to Trump's rapidly changing trade policies, but he saw risks ahead. "The more he just whips around policy, the more the markets will not care, but as the old saying goes, nothing matters 'til it matters and then it's the only thing that matters," he said.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
People Are Rolling Their Eyes Into Oblivion After Hearing Karoline Leavitt's Latest Claim About Trump
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is getting put on blast after she once again demanded that President Donald Trump be given the Nobel Peace Prize. 'President Trump has brokered, on average, about one peace deal or ceasefire per month during his six months in office,' she said as she listed some of those efforts. 'It's well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.' While Trump has had his hand in some ceasefire agreements, his efforts overall have been a mixed bag. A ceasefire between Israel and Iran, for example, came only after he launched a US strike on Iranian facilities. And some of the biggest conflicts have continued to rage. Related: Trump vowed repeatedly to end the war between Russia and Ukraine on his first day in office, but the situation has only worsened. He's also promised to end the war in Gaza, but Israel's assault in response to the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks has continued, and the humanitarian crisis has escalated. Trump has instead complained that he didn't get a 'thank you' from Gaza for sending money intended for food aid. But Leavitt's demand is in line with Trump's longtime grievance over the award. He's complained repeatedly about not getting one during his previous term in office, insisting that he should have had 'four or five' of them by now. And he really doesn't like that President Barack Obama was awarded one. Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had nominated Trump for the honor in a move many observers believed was just a blatant attempt to curry favor. As a result, Leavitt's critics fired back with a number of facts about her boss. Some also noted that she seemed to pronounce 'Nobel' as 'noble,' which, ironically, is how Trump himself has spelled the name of the prize in the past. Related: And a few compared her over-the-top praise for her boss to North Korean propaganda. @olddog100ua @3mendous @scarylawyerguy @djomegamvp Related: @jimstewartson @mermaid8861 @LucasSa56947288 @rpsagainsttrump @gregtsargent @chetterhub Related: @brettsbaker @ShayneALong @ronxyz00 @johnbrynt This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Also in In the News: Also in In the News: Also in In the News: