Alleged IRGC operative charged with plotting to kill German Jewish leader

A man arrested last year has been charged with espionage and attempted participation in murder after an Iranian intelligence agency tasked him with gathering information on the head of Germany’s main Jewish group and three others with a view to carrying out attacks, German prosecutors said Thursday.

The suspect, a Danish national identified only as Ali S. in line with German privacy rules, was arrested last June in Denmark. An alleged accomplice, an Afghan national identified as Tawab M., also was arrested there in November. Federal prosecutors said they filed an indictment against the pair at the Hamburg state court on May 7.

Ali S. was charged with working as an agent for an intelligence service, acting as a secret agent for purposes of sabotage and attempted participation in murder and arson. Tawab M. was charged with attempted participation in murder.

Prosecutors alleged that Ali S. worked for the intelligence service of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and was in close contact with the Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force.

They said that, at the beginning of 2025, he was tasked with gathering information on the head of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, and on the head of the German-Israeli Society, prominent former German lawmaker Volker Beck, as well as two Jewish grocers in Berlin whom they didn’t........

© The Times of Israel