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The daughter of Jamshid “Jimmy” Sharmahd, a German-American dissident who died while imprisoned in Iran, is pleading with the Trump administration to halt nuclear negotiations with the country. Sharmahd’s body was returned to his family mutilated, with missing organs.

Sharmahd, 69, a California resident, was kidnapped in the United Arab Emirates in 2020 and taken to Tehran. His death was announced in October. His daughter, Gazelle Sharmahd, told Digital that his body showed signs of severe torture upon its return.

“I traveled to Berlin with my family not to embrace my freed father after five years of torture by these terrorists, but to receive his mutilated body in a box,” she said. “The regime did not only torture my father physically and mentally for more than 1,500 days as the U.S. Biden administration and Germany was watching idly, even after killing my father they cut out his organs.”

Gazelle Sharmahd stated that an autopsy revealed the absence of her father’s tongue, larynx, thyroid, and heart, and that he had only two teeth remaining.

She, having previously and unsuccessfully appealed to the Biden administration for her father’s release, now argues that the U.S. and Germany should not be in talks with a regime capable of such brutality.

“On the day that a German-American patriot and hostage was returned in pieces in a casket, with his tongue and heart cut out, barely recognizable to my family and me, Germany and the U.S. consider sitting down with the killers of their dual national hostage,” she said.

The Trump administration began engaging with the Iranian regime on Saturday in Oman, the same Mideast country to which Jimmy was taken after being kidnapped in the UAE, before his transfer to Iran.

According to the family’s lawyer, Jason Poblete, an expert on victims of kidnapping by totalitarian regimes, Sharmahd, a vocal critic of Tehran, was considered an American national under the Levinson Act.

The Levinson Act defines a “United States national” as a “lawful permanent resident with significant ties to the United States,” a definition that the State Department says includes non-U.S. citizens.

The act is named after Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent and private investigator who disappeared from an Iranian island in 2007. He was held hostage and declared dead in 2020, with his death occurring while in Iranian custody. His family holds the Iranian regime responsible for his capture and imprisonment.

Gazelle Sharmahd is urging FBI Director Kash Patel and German authorities to investigate her father’s murder and issue arrest warrants for the Iranian officials responsible for his execution.

She is receiving support from the German-Iranian community. Behrouz Asadi, a German-Iranian human rights activist, has sent a letter to German federal prosecutor Jens Rommel regarding Jimmy’s case.

“We urge you to initiate criminal investigations against those responsible in the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially those directly or indirectly responsible for his abduction, imprisonment, torture, and ultimately his killing,” Asadi wrote.

Poblete stated on X that Jimmy Sharmahd’s murder was “the result of a brutal regime acting with impunity—and of systemic failures by both the United States and Germany, who did not do enough. This is what happens when Americans and other U.S. nationals held hostage/unjustly detained are abandoned abroad. As Jimmy starts his journey home, our prayers are with the Sharmahd family. Justice for Jimmy will be pursued—relentlessly and without pause. We call on the media and all Americans to NeverForget Jimmy and to keep US nationals foremost on their minds when discussing hostage issues and engaging partners, allies, and adversaries.”

Sharmahd expressed her belief that German Christian Democratic party politician , who is expected to become chancellor in May, and President Donald Trump will confront terrorist regimes more effectively than their predecessors.

“President Trump is newly elected but has promised to stand with hostages and stand up to jihadists, be it Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis or the biggest one, the Islamic regime in Iran,” she said.

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