Iran Puts US-based Terrorist Group’s Ringleader On Trial

By Staff, Agencies

The ringleader of a US-based terrorist group accused of committing terror attacks and counterrevolutionary operations against Iran has been put on trial in Tehran.

Iran's official news agency IRNA, citing the Judiciary’s media center, reported on Sunday that the trial of Jamshid Sharmahd, the ringleader of the Tondar [Thunder] terrorist outfit, was underway in a plenary court session presided over by Judge Abolqassem Salavati in the capital, Tehran.

Judicial officials said Sharmahd will be tried in two legal and criminal courts.

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced in a statement in August 2020 that it had arrested the terrorist ringleader, who had directed "armed operations and acts of sabotage" in Iran from the US.

Upon his arrest, Sharmahd admitted to providing explosives for a 2008 attack against a religious congregation center in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, Fars Province, in 2008, which killed 14 people and wounded hundreds.

According to the Ministry, the group had planned to carry out several high-profile and potentially deadly attacks across the Islamic Republic, but its efforts were thwarted by the intricate intelligence operations targeting the outfit.

The prosecutor's representative said in an address to the court on Sunday that Sharmahd intended to carry out 23 terrorist acts, but was successful in only five cases and failed in 18 others.

Hassani Etemad added that the Tondar terrorist group had leveled slanderous accusations against the noble religion of Islam by using visual, audio, and social media.

During the plenary court session, Etemad said American officials had contacted the defendant after the explosion in Shiraz, and as Sharmahd confessed, “His first contact with the FBI was after the bomb blast in Shiraz, where they mentioned some security points to the defendant.”