Germany: Iranians convicted of espionage and attacks against Jews

Dthese men were condemned today by the Hamburg Regional Court in northern Germany for spying, at Iran's command, on Jewish targets of possible attacks and planning an attack on a former German politician.

Following the prosecution's request, the court sentenced Ali S., aged 54, to eight and a half years in prison, for espionage crimes for a foreign power for sabotage and participation in attempted murder and fire, and his accomplice, Tawab M., was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for participation in an attempted murder.

The defence, for its part, had requested the acquittal of both Iranian citizens living in Denmark.

The court found it proved that Ali S. received direct orders from officers of the so-called Brigades Quds, the external arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who recruited him to carry out “state terrorism activities directed from Iran and executed in Germany”.

There S. began preparations for an incendiary attack on a Kosher supermarket in Berlin and also spied, under the Tehran regime, the movements of the president of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, and the former party deputy The Greens and current president of the German-Israeli Society, Volker Beck.

Tawab M. was recruited by Ali S, no later than May 2025, to help him commit the attack on Beck, but eventually decided that the accomplice would not execute him personally, but that he would find someone else to do so and provide him with a weapon.

The sentence has not yet passed on trial and can be appealed within a week.

One of the victims of the conspiracy, Volker Beck, stated, upon hearing the sentence, that the process demonstrated to what extent Iran “is exporting its terror to Germany”, arguing that this cannot be without political consequences.

“ The Iranian ambassador must be expelled immediately! It is necessary to reduce dramatically, to a minimum, the Iranian embassy staff,” Beck said in a statement.