Two men convicted in Hamburg of plotting attacks against Schuster and Beck
The Hanseatic Higher Regional Court sentenced two men acting on behalf of Iran to multi-year prison sentences. They had spied on Jewish personalities in Germany.
Hamburg court convicts alleged Iranian agents over murder plots
The Hanseatic Higher Regional Court has sentenced two men to prison terms for espionage activities on behalf of Iran, as well as attempted involvement in murder and serious arson. According to welt.de, a 54-year-old Dane with Afghan roots received a sentence of eight and a half years; a 43-year-old Afghan was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.
The court established that both men, who live in Denmark, had systematically spied on the president of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, as well as the president of the German-Israeli Society, Volker Beck. Furthermore, the 54-year-old is said to have made preparations for an arson attack on a kosher food shop in Berlin.
According to the Federal Prosecutor's Office, the 54-year-old's orders came directly from officers of the so-called Al-Quds Brigades, the foreign operations unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. He subsequently approached the 43-year-old to recruit him for an attack on Beck — or at least to persuade him to find a suitable person to carry it out. The two ultimately agreed on the latter variant.
The verdict matched the demands of the Federal Prosecutor's Office. The defence lawyers had pleaded for acquittal.
Volker Beck explicitly welcomed the convictions and at the same time demanded political consequences. The court had made clear that this was not the action of "confused individuals or petty criminals", but rather a state-commissioned operation by Iran. The aim had been to "attack Jewish life in Germany and silence pro-Zionist voices", Beck said in an interview with WELT TV.
The federal government must "immediately expel the Iranian ambassador" and reduce embassy staff to a minimum, Beck demanded. Otherwise, the verdict would be "an invitation to Iran to do this again and again".
Source: Google News LU DE