Germany jails two men for planned attacks on pro-Israel, Jewish figures

A German court on Thursday jails two men convicted of planning attacks on prominent pro-Israel public figures and spying on Jews on behalf of Iranian secret services.

The court in Hamburg sentences a Danish national named as Ali S. to eight and a half years in prison for planning deadly attacks on targets including the head of the German-Israeli society, Volker Beck, and the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster.

An Afghan accomplice, Tawab M., is sentenced to four and a half years. Prosecutors say he had agreed to recruit a third man and provide him with a weapon for the attack on Beck.

S. took orders from the Quds Force, the foreign operations branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in early 2025, prosecutors say.

The two men were remanded in custody in Germany following their arrests and extraditions last year in Denmark.

When the charges were announced in May, Beck called on Berlin to expel the Iranian ambassador as well as consular officials.

“Jewish life and a commitment to the Jewish and democratic state are repeatedly threatened with murder and attacked by the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran on German soil,” he said at the time.

In July 2025, the foreign ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador to Germany to protest following Ali S.’s arrest in Denmark.

When the two men were charged, the Iranian embassy in Berlin released a statement rejecting what it called “unfounded allegations made at the behest of Iran’s enemies.”