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Iranwire – Iran’s judiciary says an Iranian diplomat imprisoned in Belgium will “soon” be released in a prisoner swap. The announcement was not immediately confirmed by Brussels.
“Belgium has requested an exchange and so have we for our diplomat Asadollah Assadi. Following the necessary protocols, such an exchange will be done soon,” spokesperson Masoud Setayeshi, said on April 26, according to the judiciary’s website Mizan Online.
Assadi was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2021 for masterminding a plot to blow up a 2018 Iranian opposition event outside Paris.
On April 18, Belgium’s government submitted a request to Iran that a Belgian aid worker jailed in Iran, Olivier Vandecasteele, be sent back to his country in accordance with a prisoner transfer treaty between Brussels and Tehran.
In March, the Belgian Constitutional Court dismissed a legal challenge to the treaty, fuelling hopes that Vandecasteele could be repatriated.
Vandecasteele was arrested in February 2022 and sentenced in January this year to 40 years in prison after what Amnesty International called a “grossly unfair” trial that lasted only 30 minutes.
Belgium repeatedly said there were no grounds for Vandecasteele’s detention. Its justice minister said he was convicted “for a fabricated series of crimes” and in retribution for Assadi’s jailing.
Vandecasteele’s family has recently said he was being held in solitary confinement in Tehran’s Evin prison and that he complained in a phone call that “he could no longer sleep and could barely stand up straight because of excruciating muscle and nerve pain.”
Western governments have repeatedly accused the Islamic Republic of taking dual and foreign nationals hostage to use them in prisoner swaps or as a bargaining chip in international negotiations.
