German farmers, conservationists and politicians have met at a wolf summit to discuss the animal’s future amid concerns that its population is out of control.
The farmers’ union is calling for a relaxation of rules over when wolves, strictly protected under EU law, can be shot, after a series of highly publicised deadly attacks on farm animals.
It has said that people in rural areas are fearful for their lives as well as the lives of their animals, with many farmers expressing concern for their livelihoods.
Germany is home to an estimated 161 packs of wolves (of between eight to 12 animals each) according to the Federal Wolf Documentation and Advisory Office. A further 43 pairs and 21 individual animals were also registered.
Bavaria’s governor, Markus Söder, attends a farmers’ meeting in Oberaudorf, Germany, on Wednesday. Photograph: Peter Kneffel/AP
Numbers have increased year on year since the wolf was placed under species protection in 1990, after it was considered to have more or less become extinct at the end of the 19thcentury.
The southern state of Bavaria has already taken its own decision to allow farmers to actively kill wolves where livestock is thought to be under particular threat.
Its leader, Markus Söder, visited an alpine village on Thursday that has reportedly been the scene of attacks on grazing animals, where he said the future of farming was in danger if wolf populations were not brought under control.
“I’ll say it quite clearly, the wolf does not belong here,” Söder told a gathering of farmers and their families in Oberaudorf. “We have introduced a new wolf bylaw … one breach is sufficient and the wolf can be removed from a region.”
Söder’s CSU party has said it would like to see the elimination of all wolves from Germany. Photograph: Peter Kneffel/AP
His Christian Social Union (CSU) has said it would like to see the elimination of all wolves from Germany. Its larger sister party, the centre-right CDU, has called for hunting rights to be expanded to include wolves.
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Harald Ebner, of the Greens party, head of the federal committee for environment and nature protection, said it would be wrong for such permission to be granted. “The quick call to arms is no solution and the perpetual appeal for wolf-free zones and quotas contravenes EU law and will bring no relief to keepers of grazing animals,” he said.
The environment minister, Steffi Lemke, also of the Greens, has argued for increasing protection both for grazing animals and wolves. “We cannot in good conscience, call for the protection of animals in African countries at the same time as saying here that it is not possible to protect the wolf,” she said
The farmers’ union in Brandenburg, northern Germany, home to the largest number of wolves in the country with an estimated 47 packs and 14 pairs, is calling for a quota that could be shot legally each year, drawing on wolf population control measures in Finland and Sweden.
Brandenburg permitted wolves to be shot in specifically defined cases in 2022, after a series of livestock killings. A male wolf was killed in March after 76 livestock deaths were attributed to it.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Dubai Duty Free officials announced the new millionaires at Dubai International Airport on Wednesday. Photo: DDF
Abu Dhabi: A 47-year-old CEO from Germany won the grand prize of one million dollars (Rs 8,17,55,050) in the latest Dubai Duty Free (DDF) Millennium Millionaire draw that took place on Wednesday, April 26.
The winner of the draw Marc Briese— won one million dollars in Millennium Millionaire Series 421 after buying the lucky ticket number 3982, which he had purchased online on April 8 on his way to Bangkok, Thailand.
Marc Briese is based in Seevetal, and works as a CEO for a logistics company in Hamburg, Germany. He has been participating in the Dubai Duty Free promotion for the past eight years.
He plans to buy a house and share some with his family.
Other winners
49-year-old Ajith Pushparajan, an Indian national based in Dubai won a Mercedes Benz S500 (Selenite Grey) car, with ticket number 1300 in Finest Surprise Series 1837, which he purchased online on March 30.
Another winner, 35-year-old Mahesh Venkat, an Indian national based in Umm Al Quwain won a BMW R nine T Pure (Mineral Grey Metallic) motorbike, with ticket number 1023 in Finest Surprise Series 536 which he purchased online on April 5.
Police representatives, members of the judiciary and politicians in Germany are calling for harsher penalties for climate activists, including preventive detention and longer prison terms, in an effort to halt their disruptive protests.
This week has seen the most intense protests yet by the campaign group Letzte Generation (Last Generation), with hundreds of its members blocking scores of roads during rush hour in Berlin.
Rainer Wendt, the head of Germany’s police trade union, led the calls for what he called the “Bavarian model” to be rolled out across the country. In the southern state, activists can be placed in preventive detention for up to 30 days in anticipation of their participation in a blockade.
In Berlin, the maximum preventive detention is currently 48 hours. “It is no accident that activists have chosen to centre their protests on Berlin and not on Munich [the capital of Bavaria],” Wendt told the news network RND.
He said the penalties in Berlin were too mild. “I consider this to be way too little … We will only get this situation under control if the punishments are harsher.”
Benjamin Jendro, of the Berlin police, said that as the protests had increased in number, alternative ways of controlling them were necessary. “We don’t want Bavarian-type rules, but we would like to have more ability to get to grips with the protests,” he told Welt TV.
Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, of the Social Democrats, has urged the 16 states to come together to create a unified stance on preventive detention.
It has been more than a year since Letzte Generation started its protests, which have mainly involved sit-ins in front of traffic, and activists sticking themselves to the road. The actions have earned them the nickname Klimakleber or “climate stickers”.
Other protests have included throwing mashed potato at works of art in galleries, lopping off the top of a municipal Christmas tree, turning off a gas pipeline, throwing fake oil at the German constitution, spraying paint on political party headquarters, and cutting through the perimeter fence of Berlin airport.
Letzte Generation activists who glue themselves to roads have been nicknamed ‘Klimakleber’ or ‘climate stickers’. Photograph: Markus Schreiber/AP
The group has repeatedly said its main aim is to highlight how imminent a climate catastrophe is, and to press the government for more urgent action, in particular to stop the use of fossil fuels.
It wants to see the establishment of a people’s council, made up of 150 Germans representing every level of society, who would create realistic ideas to tackle the emergency and present them to parliament. It also wants the government to introduce a 130kmh (80mph) speed limit on motorways.
Letzte Generation points to recent surveys in which four-fifths of Germans have called for the government to take more and swifter action on the climate emergency.
Initially, penalties against participants in the protests included cautions or fines. But German courts have started to raise the stakes in recent weeks, imposing prison sentences on some campaigners.
On Wednesday, a woman identified as Maija W, who has been a participant in Letzte Generation actions for more than a year and who last August glued herself to the frame of an oil painting by Lucas Cranach in Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie, was sentenced to four months in prison without probation.
The judge, Susanna Wortmann, said: “It is not acceptable that parts of society make reference to their objectives as the reason for breaking the law.” She said a suspended sentence was out of the question because the woman had shown “intransigence” and said she intended to take part in future protests, so that “there is no positive social prognosis”.
The woman, a 24-year-old design graduate, told the court that her protest had been symbolic and she and her fellow protester knew the painting would not be damaged as it was protected behind glass. “My participation in these actions isn’t frivolous or impetuous,” she said, adding that it was meant to throw light on the threat posed by inaction on the climate.
Earlier this month, three other protesters were sentenced to several months each in jail in Heilbronn for halting traffic. The judge, Julia Schmitt, accused the participants of coercion, for which she could have given a sentence of up to three years.
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Critics have drawn comparisons between the sentences handed down to Letzte Generation and myriad far milder penalties given for traffic accidents caused by careless driving in which people have died.
A Letzte Generation march in Berlin on Wednesday. Photograph: Christian Mang/Reuters
Members of the German government have been increasingly vocal in their criticism of the group’s actions. The Green party’s Katharina Dröge questioned how they wanted to achieve their goals, saying their main success had been to “get on the nerves of normal people going about their day-to-day lives”.
The economy minister, Robert Habeck, of the Greens, told NTV he believed the actions were wrong. “This protest doesn’t win a majority for climate protection; instead it irritates people, divides society, and in that sense it’s not a helpful contribution to climate protection,” he said.
Members of the government have compared the group to the Taliban, the Nazis and the RAF, a far-left guerrilla group that terrorised Germany in the 1970s and 80s and murdered 34 people.
The head of Berlin’s Greens, Bettina Jarasch, who has just lost her position in the government, said that while she was keen to “keep a distance” from the group, she rejected the proposals to extend preventive detention.
“Preventive detention means putting people in prison for crimes they have not yet committed,” she said in an interview with RBB Inforadio. “That is very questionable and must be strictly controlled.”
In a recent survey, 86% of participants said they were against the methods of protest used by Letzte Generation.
Anger has been heightened over accusations that the blockades hold up emergency vehicles. During this week’s Berlin protests, the fire brigade said 15 of its vehicles had been held up in one day, seven of them on their way to an emergency.
Letzte Generation insists it always leaves space for emergency vehicles. It has said membership and general support for the group has only increased the longer it has been protesting.
Carla Hindrichs, a spokesperson for the group, said: “I don’t want to stick myself to roads. I’m not doing it for fun but because we can see from examples in history that disruptive, nonviolent action can be the most effective type of action. We are like a fire alarm, which is annoying but necessary.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
The German government, local authorities and trade unions reached a deal late Saturday on higher pay scales for the country’s 2.5 million public-sector workers, staving off the possibility of indefinite strikes.
“We have accommodated the unions as far as we can responsibly do under difficult budgetary circumstances,” said Nancy Faeser, the country’s interior minister. Trade union Ver.di had called for significant raises as the country, like many others across the Continent, grapples with high inflation.
Among other things, the deal entails tax-free one-time payments totalling €3,000 in several stages, with the first €1,240 to be handed out in June, followed by €220 each month from July to February 2024. In March 2024, monthly pay for all public workers will increase by €200, followed by a 5.5 percent salary increase, with a minimum increase of €340.
The agreement runs for 24 months.
The compromise is largely based on a proposal by arbitrators who were called in after talks broke down last month. Ver.di had initially asked for a 10.5 percent raise and at least €500 more pay over a twelve-month period.
Frank Werneke, the union’s chair, said the negotiations had not been easy. “With our decision to make this compromise, we went to our pain threshold,” he said.
Municipalities in the country fear the deal may pose new financial challenges for them. Prior to the negotiations, Karin Welge, president of the Federation of Municipal Employers’ Associations, had estimated the deal could create additional costs of €17 billion for cities and municipalities.
The agreement sets an end to months of negotiations. In a string of walkouts, employee representatives in recent months had disrupted public administration and other public services. At the end of last month, Ver.di, together with the national rail and transport union, brought rail and air traffic to a halt across the country in a large-scale strike.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
The Russian government is kicking several German diplomats out of the country in an alleged tit-for-tat move, its foreign ministry said on Saturday.
“The German authorities have decided on yet another mass expulsion of employees of Russian diplomatic missions in Germany. We strongly condemn these actions of Berlin, which continues to defiantly destroy the entire array of Russian-German relations,” the ministry said in a statement, arguing that Germany’s actions were “hostile.”
The foreign affairs ministry did not specify how many diplomats it would expel, although ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told state-run television Zvezda that Moscow had decided to expel “more than 20,” according to AFP.
Russia said it took the decision in response to Germany ordering a “mass expulsion” of Russian diplomats, without specifying further details. The German foreign ministry confirmed to German outlet Deutschlandfunk only that it had been in contact with Russian authorities regarding personnel questions.
Germany had been informed of the move at the beginning of the month, the Russian foreign ministry added in the statement.
Since the war in Ukraine began, tensions between Moscow and Berlin have increased. In April last year, the German government expelled some 40 Russian diplomats from the country.
Germany’s president has asked for forgiveness for the crimes his country committed in the second world war, on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the first German president to speak at the commemorations in Poland’s capital, joined his Polish and Israeli counterparts to mark 80 years since Jewish insurgents’ doomed uprising against Nazi occupiers.
“I stand before you today and ask for your forgiveness for the crimes committed by Germans here,” Steinmeier said.
The German president also berated the Russian president, Vladimir Putin for waging war against Ukraine.
“With his illegal attack on a peaceful, democratic neighbouring country … the Russian president has broken international law,” he said. “This war brings immeasurable suffering, violence, destruction and death to the people of Ukraine.”
The official ceremony took place at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, which stands at the site of several of the uprising’s armed clashes.
The Warsaw Jews launched their armed revolt against the Nazis on 19 April 1943, preferring to die fighting than to be sent to a death camp. It was the largest single act of Jewish resistance against the Germans during the war.
“We must remember,” the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, said. “Absolute evil existed in the form of the Nazis and their accomplices. And absolute good existed in the form of the victims and the rebels, from every nation.”
About 7,000 Jews are thought to have died in the battles and a further 6,000 in fires Nazi troops started in the ghetto.
“The revolt was suicide. We couldn’t win, but we had to do them harm,” survivor Halina Birenbaum, 93, said before the anniversary.
Earlier on Wednesday, church bells and sirens sounded across Warsaw as volunteers handed out paper daffodils for residents to pin to their jackets.
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The tradition is in honour of Marek Edelman, a leader of the uprising who marked the anniversary by depositing a bouquet of daffodils, which resemble the yellow stars the Nazis forced Jews to wear, at the memorial until his death in 2009.
Paper daffodils are also being distributed in other Polish cities this year.
The Nazis set up the ghetto in a space of a little over three square kilometres (1.2 square miles) a year after their 1939 invasion of Poland. It was the largest of the second world war ghettos.
Many Jews died inside of starvation and disease, and most who survived were sent to the Treblinka death camp east of Warsaw.
At the outbreak of the uprising, about 50,000 civilians were hiding in cellars and bunkers in the ghetto. The Nazis put down the revolt with extreme brutality and set fire to the entire district, turning it to rubble and ash.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
BERLIN — Germany’s center-right opposition wants to raise the heat on Chancellor Olaf Scholz by launching a parliamentary investigation into his alleged connection to a massive tax evasion scandal.
The case — which dates back over five years to the time when Scholz was still mayor of the Hamburg city-state — is linked to the broader so-called “Cum Ex” affair, under which the German state was defrauded by over €30 billion as some banks, companies, or individuals claimed tax reimbursements from authorities for alleged costs that never occurred.
The scandal already hung over the Social Democratic politician’s election campaign in 2021 but had little impact in the end as Scholz’s potential involvement remained unclear. Now it is heating up again after new details emerged that put his previous defense in question.
The Hamburg regional parliament plans to summon Scholz this spring — which will be for the third time — to an investigative committee looking into the scandal. And now the center-right CDU/CSU bloc also wants to set up an inquiry at the national level in the Bundestag.
“We will request a parliamentary committee of inquiry into the Scholz-Warburg tax affair in the German Bundestag in the first parliamentary week after the Easter vacations,” said the CDU’s Mathias Middelberg, deputy parliamentary group chairman, on Tuesday.
A government spokesperson said that “as a matter of principle,” Berlin does not comment on decisions announced by Bundestag members “out of respect for the constitutional body,” according to media reports.
Katja Mast, the Social Democrats’ chief whip, said the CDU/CSU is not following any interest in knowledge, but rather party tactical interests. “They bring up allegations that have long been refuted,” she said, adding that the committee in Hamburg had clarified all questions.
The CDU/CSU group has enough votes in parliament to be able to set up an investigative committee. The Left party also said it would back such a request. Parliamentary investigative committees can hear witnesses and experts and request access to documents. Although the findings are summarized in a non-binding report, the political consequences, such as for upcoming elections, could be significant.
In a letter to the CDU/CSU parliamentary group seen by POLITICO, chairmen Friedrich Merz and Alexander Dobrindt said that the case should be investigated due to its “significant” importance for German national politics.
Scholz has come under scrutiny because of his links to one Hamburg-based bank involved in the tax evasion scheme: During his time as mayor, he met on three separate occasions in private with one of the owners of the M.M. Warburg & Co. bank, which was already under investigation at the time by the Hamburg tax office. Officials were planning to reclaim €47 million, which they believed were ill-gotten gains in connection with the fraud.
However, in the end, the finance authority let the statute of limitations on the payment demand expire — and years later, after details of Scholz’s meetings with the banker emerged, critics began questioning whether the top Social Democrat might have intervened in favor of the bank.
Although the chancellor has constantly denied having intervened, he has also given no answer on what was discussed during the private meetings. Instead, Scholz said on several occasions during the past two-and-a-half years that he cannot remember the content of the discussions.
During his time as mayor of the Hamburg city-state, Scholz met with one of the owners of the M.M. Warburg & Co. Bank, involved in a tax evasion scheme | Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images
That defense is now being called into question as details emerged of a previous and longtime confidential Bundestag committee hearing with Scholz in July 2020, in which he appeared to easily remember details of his meetings with the banker. His critics argue that Scholz only started to claim having no memory of the meetings when their political and possibly criminal explosiveness became clear.
“This comprehensive memory gap of the chancellor after an initial memory of a concrete meeting … raises a multitude of questions to be clarified,” the letter from the CDU/CSU states.
Scholz and his allies have repeatedly rejected such criticism as politically motivated and stressed that past investigations found no wrongdoing. Scholz also highlighted that in the end, the bank did repay the €47 million, albeit only after it was ordered to do so by a court. The Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office said in March that it does not see any initial suspicion against the chancellor in the affair.
That hasn’t discouraged the opposition from planning to dig deeper, though.
“The chancellor would like to see … a line drawn under the clarification of this tax affair. But it is precisely the task of parliament to control the government, to look closely, especially with so many unanswered questions,” said CDU lawmaker Matthias Hauer.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
BERLIN — Germany’s Christian Democrats, the country’s largest opposition group, are planning to shift away from the pragmatic stance toward China that characterized Angela Merkel’s 16 years as chancellor, claiming that maintaining peace through trade has failed.
It’s a remarkable course change for the conservative party that pursued a strategy of rapprochement and economic interdependence toward China and Russia during Merkel’s decade and a half in power. The volte-face has been spurred by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s increasingly aggressive stance — both economically and politically — in the Asian region and beyond.
According to a draft position paper seen by POLITICO, the conservatives say the idea of keeping peace through economic cooperation “has failed with regard to Russia, but increasingly also China.” The 22-page paper, which is to be adopted by the center-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) parliamentary group in the Bundestag around Easter, outlines key points for a new China policy.
In a world order that is changing after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz last year announced a Zeitenwende, or major turning point, in German security policy. Economy Minister Robert Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, in particular, have stressed the necessity of a comprehensive China strategy, an idea already mentioned in the coalition agreement to form Scholz’s government. Their ministries have elaborated two different drafts, but a comprehensive strategy is not yet in sight.
“We realize at this point in time, with some surprise, which is why we prepared and presented this paper, that the German government is significantly behind schedule on key foreign and security policy documents,” said CDU foreign policy lawmaker Johann Wadephul.
The foreword to the position paper states that “the rise of communist China is the central, epochal challenge of the 21st century for all states seeking to preserve, strengthen, and sustain the rules-based international order.” The CDU/CSU parliamentary group is open to working out a “national consensus” with Scholz’s government. That consensus, the group says, must be embedded in the national security strategy and in a European China strategy.
The relationship with China is described in the same triad fashion that wasformulated by the European Commission in 2019 and is in the coalition agreement of the current German government. Under this strategy,the Asian country is seen as a partner, economic competitor and systemic rival.
But the CDU/CSU group’s paper says policy should move away from a Beijing-friendly, pragmatic stance toward China, especially on trade. “We should not close our eyes to the fact that China has shifted the balance on its own initiative and clearly pushed the core of the relationship toward systemic rivalry,” the text states.
Such an emphasis from the conservative group is remarkable given its long-held preference for economic cooperation and political rapprochement toward both China and Russia under Merkel. Before leaving office, for example, Merkel pushed a major EU-China investment deal over the line, though it was later essentially frozen by the European Parliament due to Beijing’s sanctions against MEPs.
“I say to this also self-critically [that] this means for the CDU/CSU a certain new approach in China policy after a 16-year government period,” Wadephul said.
The paper calls for a “Zeitenwende in China policy,” too, concluding that Germany should respond “with the ability and its own strength to compete” wherever China seeks and forces competition; should build up its resilience and defensive capability and form as well as expand alliances and partnerships with interest and value partners; and demonstrate a willingness to partner where it is openly, transparently and reliably embraced by China.
The CDU/CSU papercalls for a European China strategy and a “European China Council” with EU neighbors for better cooperation. A central point is also strengthening reciprocity and European as well as German sovereignty.
“Decoupling from China is neither realistic nor desirable from a German and European perspective,” according to the text.
To better monitor dependencies, the paper proposes an expert commission in the Bundestag that would present an annual “China check” on dependencies in trade, technology, raw materials and foreign trade, with the overall aim of developing a “de-risking” strategy.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
BERLIN — German prosecutors have found “traces”of evidence indicating that Ukrainians may have been involved in the explosions that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022, according to German media reports Tuesday.
Investigators identified a boat that was potentially used for transporting a crew of six people, diving equipment and explosives into the Baltic Sea in early September. Charges were then placed on the pipelines, according to a joint investigation by German public broadcasters ARD and SWR as well as the newspaper Die Zeit.
The German reports said that the yacht had been rented from a company based in Poland that is “apparently owned by two Ukrainians.”
However, no clear evidence has been established so far on who ordered the attack, the reports said.
In its first reaction, Ukraine’s government dismissed the reports.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied the Ukrainian government had any involvement in the pipeline attacks. “Although I enjoy collecting amusing conspiracy theories about the Ukrainian government, I have to say: Ukraine has nothing to do with the Baltic Sea mishap and has no information about ‘pro-Ukraine sabotage groups,'” Podolyak wrote in a tweet.
Three of the four pipes making up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 undersea gas pipelines from Russia to Germany were destroyed by explosions last September. Germany, Sweden and Denmark launched investigations into an incident that was quickly established to be a case of “sabotage.”
The German media reports — which come on top of a New York Times report Tuesday which said that “intelligence suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group” sabotaged the pipelines — stress that there’s no proof that Ukrainian authorities ordered the attack or were involved in it.
Any potential involvement by Kyiv in the attack would risk straining relations between Ukraine and Germany, which is one of the most important suppliers of civilian and military assistance to the country as it fights against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
According to the investigation by German public prosecutors that is cited by the German outlets, the team which placed the explosive charges on the pipelines was comprised of five men — a captain, two divers and two diving assistants — as well as one woman doctor, all of them of unknown nationality and operating with false passports. They left the German port of Rostock on September 6 on the rented boat, the report said.
It added that the yacht was later returned to the owner “in uncleaned condition” and that “on the table in the cabin, the investigators were able to detect traces of explosives.”
But the reports also said that investigators can’t exclude that the potential link to Ukraine was part of a “false flag” operation aiming to pin the blame on Kyiv for the attacks.
Contacted by POLITICO, a spokesperson for the German government referred to ongoing investigations by the German prosecutor general’s office, which declined to comment.
The government spokesperson also said: “a few days ago, Sweden, Denmark and Germany informed the United Nations Security Council that investigations were ongoing and that there was no result yet.”
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova dismissed the reports of Ukrainian involvement in the Nord Stream bombings, saying in a post on the Telegram social media site that they were aimed at distracting attention from earlier, unsubstantiated, reports that the U.S. destroyed the pipelines.
Veronika Melkozerova in Kyiv contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Tehran: Iran has declared two German diplomats to be personae non gratae and has expelled them from the Islamic republic over Berlin’s “interventionist and irresponsible” measures against Tehran.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani blamed the German government for its “irresponsible interference” in Iran’s internal and judicial affairs, according to a statement published on the Foreign Ministry’s website on Wednesday.
The Ministry has summoned the German Ambassador to Tehran, Hans-Udo Muzel and informed him of the decision, Kanaani was quoted as saying in the statement.
Iran will “act decisively” in response to unreasonable demands, said Kanaani, warning that Iran will have “other alternatives” if certain countries seek to disregard its fundamental principles and national sovereignty, Xinhua news agency reported.
On February 22, Germany announced that it would expel two diplomats from Iran’s embassy in Berlin after an Iranian court handed down the death sentence to Jamshid Sharmahd, an Iranian-German national, for “planning and organising acts of terror in the country”.
According to the Mizan news agency affiliated with the Iranian judiciary, Iran handed down the death sentence on February 21, accusing Sharmahd as “the ringleader of the Tondar(Thunder) group who intended to carry out 23 terror operations(in Iran), of which only five were conducted”.
One day later, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock announced in a statement that Berlin had declared two staff members from the Iranian embassy in Berlin to be personae non gratae and ordered them to leave Germany immediately.
The Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced the arrest of Sharmahd in 2020.
Founded by a number of Iranian pro-monarchists in Britain in 2003, the Tondar group is accused of carrying out a bombing attack in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz in 2008, which killed 14 people and injured 300 others, and planning other attacks in the country, according to Mizan.
