Iran-backed spy trial opens in Hamburg over plot to assassinate Jewish community leaders in Germany

The trial of two men accused of preparing attacks on high-profile Jewish representatives and a kosher shop in Berlin began on Friday before the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg. Federal prosecutors say the defendants acted on direct orders from Iran's elite al-Quds Brigades, the foreign operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The charges

Ali S., a 54-year-old Danish national of Afghan origin, faces charges of intelligence agent activity and attempted complicity in murder and severe arson. His co-defendant Tawab M., a 42-year-old Afghan-born man, is charged with attempted participation in murder. The main suspect allegedly received his mission from Quds Force officers in early 2025.

The proceedings show not only that Iran remains a significant actor in espionage, but also that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards increasingly view Germany as a theatre for state-terrorist attacks.

Reconnaissance in Berlin

According to a report by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution read in court, German domestic intelligence officers tailed Ali S. during a visit to Berlin in June 2025. He was picked up on the A7 motorway shortly after entering from Denmark and driven to the capital in a car with Danish plates. There he visited the offices of the German-Israeli Society, a kosher food store, and the seat of the German Ethics Council, where Josef Schuster serves. At each location, officers observed him using his mobile phone to photograph buildings and their surroundings.

Targets and recruitment

Prosecutors say Ali S. was ordered to collect information on Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and Volker Beck, president of the German-Israeli Society. He then approached Tawab M. to recruit him for an attack on Beck, or to find someone else willing to carry it out. For a planned arson attack on a Berlin kosher grocery, he asked his daughter whether she knew a Somali or Palestinian woman who needed money and was ready to fly to Germany. The promised payment: 30,000 Danish kroner (roughly 4,000 euros).

Arrests and extradition

Danish police arrested Ali S. in Aarhus almost exactly one year ago. He was extradited to Germany weeks later and brought before an investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe. Tawab M. was also detained in Denmark, in November 2025, and subsequently handed over to German authorities. Both men have been in pre-trial custody in Germany.

Reactions and political context

Volker Beck, a former Green Party MP who served in the Bundestag from 1994 to 2017, attended the trial as a spectator and has applied to be admitted as a co-plaintiff. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) said the initial tip-off came from a friendly foreign intelligence service and that Germany cooperated with several foreign agencies. A source confirmed to dpa that the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad was involved.

We cooperated with several foreign services in this matter.

Iran's embassy in Berlin rejected the allegations as "unfounded and dangerous claims," calling them part of a campaign to distract from Israel's war against Iran. Israel had launched military strikes on Iran on 13 June 2025.