Life of German jailed in Iran 'at grave risk' over failing health: daughter

A German citizen abducted in Dubai and sentenced to death by Iran is almost unable to walk and talk due to health conditions that prison authorities have failed to properly treat, his daughter told AFP.

Jamshid Sharmahd, who is also a US resident, suffers from Parkinson's disease and could die due to his deteriorating health, Gazelle Sharmahd told AFP after her father last week made a rare phone call from prison to the family.

Sharmahd, 68, was kidnapped in the United Arab Emirates and forcibly transferred to Iran in the summer of 2020, according to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Iran has only said he was detained in a "complex operation".

He was put on trial in Iran and convicted of "corruption on earth" and sentenced to death.

In the United States, Sharmahd helped develop a website for an exiled Iranian opposition group and also hosted radio broadcasts. The family have rubbished claims made in Iran against him over a blast in 2008 in the southern city of Shiraz.

According to human rights group Amnesty International, he had been subjected to "enforced disappearance, torture and other ill treatment".

Gazelle Sharmahd said: "My dad has advanced stage Parkinson's and delaying his medication makes it nearly impossible for him to talk, walk, move or even breathe."

Speaking after he unexpectedly called her mother last week, Gazelle Sharmahd added: "His teeth have been broken under torture or through malnourishment, he cannot enunciate words or chew or eat properly.

"He has been in complete solitary confinement for over 1,185 days, that alone can drive you to insanity and take the last drop of energy out of your body.

"He has severe chest pains as soon as he tries to walk in his tiny torture chamber. He said his feet are constantly swollen."

The family do not know where in Iran he is being held.

- 'Can be hanged any minute' -

Gazelle Sharmahd, a critical care nurse specialised in coronary care, warned her father was in danger of suffering a heart attack.

"His life is at grave risk in the inhumane conditions under which they try to break him and, on top of that, he is still condemned to death after lawless sham-trials and can be pulled out of his cell at any minute to be hanged."

The family had already expressed dismay that Sharmahd, a US resident, was not included in a September deal that saw five American citizens released from prison in Iran.

Another US resident, Shahab Dalili, arrested in 2016 in Iran, is in a similar situation and remains behind bars.

Sharmahd, while born in Tehran, does not hold an Iranian passport, and is a German citizen resident in California, according to his family.

Their families say that US residents detained abroad such as Dalili and Sharmahd should be considered US nationals under the 2020 Levinson Act, named after the former FBI agent Robert Levinson who disappeared in Iran in 2007 and whom the United States believes died in Iranian custody.

Activists believe that even after the US deal, around a dozen foreign nationals are still being held by Iran, and have accused the Islamic republic of a deliberate strategy of hostage taking to extract concessions from the West.

Among those held is Swedish national Ahmadreza Djalali who was arrested in 2016 and sentenced to death on espionage charges his family vehemently reject.