It was midnight when the phone rang.
Gazelle Sharmahd is woken up by her mother, who tells her that her father, Jamshid, is calling from his prison cell in Iran. Gazelle had not been allowed to speak to her father, an Iranian-German businessman, for two years.
“We didn’t even know if he had already been executed and they hadn’t told us,” she told me days later from his home in Los Angeles.
Iran sentenced Jamshid Sharma to death last February for so-called “corruption on the ground” — a vague catch-all term used by the Iranian government to express dissent. Amnesty International denounced his trial and betrayed him.
His daughter was overjoyed to speak to her father again, but worried that the phone call was allowed to say goodbye before his execution.
For almost three years, the 68-year-old has been in solitary confinement in an Iranian prison, cut off from the world. During the hour-long phone conversation, his daughter suddenly realized that she had not even been told about her death sentence.
Earlier this month, Gazelle Shermahd launched a criminal complaint here in Germany, calling on German state prosecutors to investigate eight high-ranking Iranian judiciary and intelligence service officials for crimes against humanity over the treatment of her father.
His father has lost his teeth – either through malnutrition or violence – so he can’t eat. He cannot walk or speak properly because he suffers from Parkinson’s and is not being given the right medication.
“They are killing him softly in solitary confinement in a death cell. But if he escapes, they are publicly hanging him from a crane,” he said. “They want a public hanging for my father to send this message of terror: that anyone who speaks against the government, we can do the same to you – look at that man hanging there.”
Jamshid Sharmamad was born in Iran, grew up in Germany and holds dual citizenship. He worked as an engineer for Siemens before setting up his own tech business in the US in the early 2000s.
It was only after he became the target of an Iranian hacking attack that he began to publicly speak out against the Iranian government.
Then, three years ago, during a business trip to Dubai, he was kidnapped and taken to an Iranian prison. The list of charges became endless, from spying for the Americans, British and Germans to numerous alleged terrorist attacks. German and EU politicians say the allegations are bogus.
“Even in Iran, you can’t punish someone for terrorism without evidence,” said Gazelle Sharmahd, which is why the death penalty is for “corruption on the ground.”
Gazelle, who grew up in Germany and is now an intensive care nurse in the US, has long campaigned for her father’s release, but says she has received little help from the German government.
That is why he launched his criminal complaint using the principle of universal jurisdiction to target Iran’s top judiciary and intelligence officials. It enables crimes against humanity or war crimes to be prosecuted anywhere in the world, regardless of where the crimes were committed.
Gazelle Sharmahd’s German lawyer, Patrick Crocker of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, used the principle last year to prosecute a former official of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for torture and murder in Syria. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany.
Mr Crocker believes that such cases can act as a deterrent and prevent human rights abuses as criminals cannot be sure they will not be arrested as they travel.
“High-level government officials are used to a lifestyle that enables them to visit a niece studying in Paris or go skiing in Sweden. And that is no longer possible – at least they cannot be safe from it,” he said.
But it’s unclear how Iranian authorities will respond, and Gazelle Sharmahd still fears her father could be executed at any moment.
