The German government has initiated an official procedure within the European Union to impose terrorism sanctions on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Foreign Office, supported by other EU member states, submitted a request in Brussels to list the elite force of the Islamic Republic under the sanctions regime that the EU introduced in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks in the USA.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had already raised the issue at the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in May and requested a new opinion from the legal service of the European External Action Service. An EU spokeswoman merely stated that the discussions in the Council are “internal and confidential, so we cannot comment on them publicly.”
Baerbock had announced at the beginning of last year that she would advocate declaring the Revolutionary Guard — also known as the Revolutionary Guards or Pasdaran, which is directly subordinate to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — as a terrorist organization. Unlike before, however, the EU’s legal experts now see the German request as a basis that meets the high legal requirements.
For a long time, the outgoing EU Foreign Affairs Representative Josep Borrell opposed imposing terrorism sanctions against Iran, citing legal problems. The other 26 EU member states must unanimously agree to any potential sanctions. Whether unanimity can be achieved is considered uncertain in Brussels, although discussions in the relevant Council working groups have only recently begun.
The German government bases its initiative on a ruling by the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf, which in December 2023 sentenced the German-Iranian Babak J. to two years and nine months in prison for attempted arson. In November 2022, he planned to throw a Molotov cocktail at the synagogue in Bochum but hurled it against a neighboring school out of fear of being discovered. The court found that Iranian state authorities were behind the attack, without specifying them further.
He is said to have received the order for the attack from the German-Iranian Ramin Yektaparast, who died in Tehran in April under unexplained circumstances. Yektaparast previously belonged to the biker gangs Bandidos and Hells Angels in Germany and fled to Iran in 2021. In Germany, he was wanted under an arrest warrant for murder. In a decision by the 3rd Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice on June 13, 2023, Yektaparast is described as part of a group that had come together to carry out attacks on synagogues and other Jewish institutions in Germany. Within the “operative team,” he is said to have “held a coordinating role in collaboration with an Iranian state agency, the Quds Forces of the Revolutionary Guard.” The Quds Brigades are a special unit of the Revolutionary Guard responsible for operations abroad, including terrorist attacks. They also manage the network of militias supported by Iran.
According to the decision, the information regarding the connection to the Quds Forces, named after the Arabic word for Jerusalem, is based “primarily on official evidence.” This usually refers to intelligence findings, in this case, apparently from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The information was corroborated by further investigations, including witness statements from Babak J., according to the decision. Yektaparast is also said to have given the order to another suspect who shot at the rabbi’s house of the Old Synagogue in Essen in November 2022. A fourth participant attempted to recruit perpetrators for attacks. The man had filed a complaint against a search; this is the subject of the decision.
Under European law, listing requires investigation proceedings for terrorist activities or corresponding judgments in an EU member state. According to EU legal experts, such a procedure or judgment was not previously available. However, in light of the cases now put forward by Germany, they now also see a legally sound basis, according to SZ information. Terrorism sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard would primarily be a strong political signal to the regime in Tehran. Many officers of the Guard are already subject to sanctions for their involvement in Iran’s nuclear program, their responsibility for severe human rights violations, or their support of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Should the Revolutionary Guard be listed, this could further impact business with Iran: The sanctions include travel restrictions, freezing of assets, and a ban on financial and economic transactions. In Iran, the Guard controls important sectors of the economy directly or indirectly and maintains an extensive network of companies.
All publishing rights and copyrights reserved to MENA Research Center.
