German court jails two over pro-Israel attack plots

A court in Hamburg has jailed two men convicted of planning attacks on prominent pro-Israel public figures and spying on Jews on behalf of Iranian secret services.

The court sentenced a Danish national named as Ali S. to eight-and-a-half years in prison. An Afghan accomplice, Tawab M., received a four-and-a-half-year sentence.

The planned targets included Volker Beck, head of the German-Israeli society, and Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

Prosecutors said Ali S. took orders in early 2025 from the Quds Force, the foreign operations branch of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They said Tawab M. had agreed to recruit a third man and provide him with a weapon for an attack on Beck.

The two men were held in Germany after their arrests and extraditions last year in Denmark.

When the charges were announced in May, Beck called on Berlin to expel Iran's ambassador and consular officials. Germany's foreign ministry summoned Iran's ambassador in July 2025 after Ali S. was arrested in Denmark.

The Iranian embassy in Berlin rejected the allegations when the men were charged, calling them unfounded and made at the behest of Iran's enemies.