Memorial ceremony in Berlin for German-Iranian as questions remain
Almost six months after the death of German-Iranian dual national Jamshid Sharmahd in Iranian custody, relatives and friends held a memorial ceremony in the German capital on Friday.
The service at a funeral parlour in the Neukölln district of Berlin was attended by his daughter and son, who live in the United States.
Among the guests were German Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir, and Berlin's deputy mayor Franziska Giffey.
In the evening, an Iranian opposition group is planning a solidarity rally for all political prisoners in Iran at the Brandenburg Gate.
Sharmahd, a computer expert and entrepreneur, was born in Tehran in 1955, grew up in the northern German city of Hanover and moved to California in 2003, where he was active in an Iranian opposition group in exile.
In the summer of 2020, he was abducted under mysterious circumstances while travelling from Dubai to Iran.
Iran's judiciary announced at the end of October that Sharmahd would be executed after being sentenced to death in early 2023. He was convicted during a controversial trial following allegations of terrorism, which relatives and human rights activists rejected as baseless.
Iran's judiciary later declared that Sharmahd had not been executed but had in fact died in custody. Many questions remain about his death.
Last year, his daughter accused the US and German governments of having done nothing to secure her father's release - accusations she repeated at the memorial service.
The human rights organization Amnesty International called for an "independent, impartial and effective" investigation into the causes and circumstances of Jamshid Sharmahd's death, which remain unclear following an autopsy.
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