Islamic Republic summons German and Irish envoys after Hamburg court ruling

The Islamic Republic's foreign ministry on Monday, 19 October 2026, summoned Axel Dittmann, Germany's ambassador in Tehran, and the ambassador of Ireland, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. The move came a few hours after Germany's foreign ministry had summoned the Islamic Republic's ambassador, following a Hamburg court ruling against two men accused of spying for the Islamic Republic and identifying targets in a plot to attack Jewish and pro-Israel figures.

Alireza Yousefi, director general for Western Europe at the Islamic Republic's foreign ministry, called Germany's accusations "baseless" and in turn accused Berlin of involvement in what he called "war crimes". The Irish ambassador was summoned in response to a recent European Union statement on the same case.

The Hamburg case and transnational repression

The Hamburg court convicted the two defendants of working with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to identify two leaders of Germany's Jewish community as targets for an attack. The ruling is one of the latest in a series of cases in which European courts have established the Islamic Republic's role in assassination and intimidation plots on European soil.

Meanwhile in London, the trial of the defendants in the plot to attack Iran International journalists continues, and Albania's prime minister Edi Rama has accused the Islamic Republic of stoking unrest in his country.

A familiar pattern of denial

Whenever a European court ruling exposes the role of its security bodies in assassination plots, the Islamic Republic has summoned European ambassadors and rejected the accusations instead of answering for them. The tit-for-tat summoning of ambassadors, without any response to the evidence presented in the Hamburg court, continues that pattern.

Instead of answering the evidence from the Hamburg court, the Islamic Republic summoned the German and Irish ambassadors.