Iran begins trial of alleged US-based terrorist ring leader

Jamshid Sharmahd (L front), who is accused by the Iranian government of being a leader of the US-based “Tondar terrorist group” behind a deadly attack in Iran in 2008, attends the first hearing of his trial in the capital Tehran on 6 February 2022. [KOOSHA MAHSHID FALAHI/MIZAN NEWS AGENCY/AFP via Getty Images]

Iran yesterday began the trial of Iranian-German national and US resident Jamshid Sharmahd; an alleged leader of the militant wing of a US-based Iranian opposition group who is accused of planning a 2008 bombing at a mosque that killed 14 people and wounded over 200 in the Islamic Republic, local media reported.

Iranian state television said Sharmahd had confessed to having ties to the FBI and the CIA, and said he had been in contact with nine FBI and CIA agents.

In August 2020, Sharmahd’s family told AP that he had been in Dubai, trying to travel to India for a business deal involving his software company, when Iranian intelligence officials kidnapped him. He was later transported to Iran via Oman.

The Iranian Judiciary’s Mizan agency said his trial was held in public yesterday. He is accused of “corruption on earth by planning and directing terrorist acts, as well as the bombing of a mosque in Shiraz on April 12 2008, which killed 14 people and injured approximately 300 others,” the website added.

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