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Iranwire – Belgium’s prime minister says Iranian authorities have released a Belgian humanitarian worker who had been jailed in Iran for more than a year.
“Olivier Vandecasteele is on his way to Belgium,” Alexander De Croo said in a statement on May 26. “If all goes as planned, he will be with us tonight.”
De Croo said Vandecasteele was transferred to Oman late on May 25.
“Olivier spent 455 days in prison in Tehran. In unbearable conditions. Innocent,” he added.
Oman, which has long served as an interlocutor for Western countries with Iran, said that a prisoner swap between Belgium and Iran was underway. It did not identify the prisoners being swapped.
Iranian state media repeated Oman’s announcement, without providing further details.
“Those released were transferred from Tehran and Brussels to Muscat today, Friday, in preparation for their return to their countries,” Oman’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “The sultanate of Oman appreciated the high positive spirit that prevailed in the talks in Muscat between the Iranian and Belgian sides, and their keenness to settle this humanitarian issue.”
Reports said that one individual was on his way to Iran as part of a prisoner swap.
According to Belgian public broadcaster RTBF, the individual in question is Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Belgium in 2021 for plotting a 2018 Iranian opposition event outside Paris.
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” in retribution for Assadi’s jailing.
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.
