Iran released Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele after nearly 15 months in prison on Friday, in a prisoner swap for Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi, who was convicted of terrorism.
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Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said the 42-year-old had arrived in Oman and added: “If everything goes to plan, he will be with us tonight. Free at last!”
In fact, Oman’s foreign ministry announced that it had helped broker an “exchange deal” and that an Iranian previously held in Belgium was on his way to Tehran.
Iran announced that the freed Iranian was diplomat Assadollah Assadi, who was jailed in Belgium for a 2018 plan to bomb an Iranian opposition rally outside Paris.
Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, tweeted that Assadi, “the innocent diplomat of our country…
He thanked Oman for its role in securing the release. Belgium has always insisted that Vandecasteele was innocent and that his trial was rigged. He was sentenced in January to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes for “espionage”, Tehran’s judiciary said at the time. “Olivier spent 455 days imprisoned in Tehran in unbearable conditions. Innocent,” said de Croo.
“For me, the choice was always clear. Olivier’s life always came first. It was a responsibility that I took on myself, that I accepted. In Belgium, we don’t leave anyone behind.”
Last year, Belgium and Iran signed an agreement to allow a prisoner exchange.
‘Intolerable conditions’
Critics of the deal say it will only encourage Tehran to take Belgian hostages to use as bargaining chips to seek the return of agents like Assadi who have been arrested for terrorist offenses in the West. .
An exiled Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which was the target of the 2018 bomb plan, challenged the agreement in Belgium’s constitutional court.
But De Croo’s government insisted the deal was the only way to secure Vandecasteele’s freedom, and in March a court upheld the deal, paving the way for Friday’s deal. Earlier this month, Iran released a Frenchman, Benjamin Briere, and a French-Irish citizen, Bernard Phelan, but continues to hold two dozen foreigners who are considered by Western capitals and families to be hostages. hostage.
Assadi is an Iranian diplomat based in Vienna, who was arrested after passing explosives to a Belgian-based Iranian couple who were supposed to travel to France to bomb the NCRI rally. He was arrested in Germany while he was trying to return to Austria, and extradited to Belgium where he did not enjoy diplomatic immunity. He was convicted of attempting to kill a “terrorist” and being a member of a “terrorist group”.
Tehran angrily protested, but his sentence was upheld in May 2021 when Assadi chose not to appeal.
(AFP)
