Alleged IRGC operative charged with plotting to kill German Jewish leader

Prosecutors say Ali S. was arrested in Denmark in June for plots against Josef Schuster, as well as two Jewish grocers and pro-Israel politician; alleged accomplice is in custody

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 identify.

“All this served for the preparation of assassination and arson attacks in Germany,” prosecutors said in a statement.

Ali S. scouted out various locations in Berlin last year and sought accomplices for attacks, they added. By May 2025, he was in contact with Tawab M., who allegedly said that he was prepared to procure a weapon for an unidentified third person and arrange for him to try to kill Beck.

German newspaper Der Spiegel said Ali S.’s defense attorney vowed to contest the charges against the suspect, while an attorney for Tawab M. declined to comment.

After Ali S. was arrested last year, Iran’s ambassador was summoned to the German Foreign Ministry. The Iranian Embassy at the time rejected what it called “unfounded and dangerous allegations” of an apparent plan for an attack on Jewish facilities.

In a statement Thursday, the German-Israeli Society said Beck, its president, had been warned for six weeks last summer that “an attack could come at any moment.”

The statement quoted Beck as saying that German democracy and Jewish life in the country were under constant threat of attack from Iran and that “this must not go unpunished.”

Following Thursday’s indictment, the Society demanded Berlin expel the Iranian ambassador, freeze assets linked to Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and levy sanctions on Iran-linked financial institutions.

Diaspora Jewish communities have faced an uptick in attacks since the US and Israel launched war on Iran on February 28 in a bid to destabilize its regime and destroy its ballistic missile and nuclear programs.

Authorities have been probing possible Iran links in several of the attacks. Last week, the US Justice Department announced the arrest of a senior commander of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia for plotting what prosecutors said were close to 20 terror attacks on Jewish targets in the US, Europe and Canada during the Iran war.