A Belgian aid worker arrested earlier this year in Tehran has been sentenced to 28 years in prison, a spokesman for his family announced on Wednesday (December 14th). He is caught up in what is described by his family as a diplomatic-judicial standoff between Belgium and Iran over a prisoner transfer treaty. The Flemish press refers to a ” show trial to put pressure on the Belgian government. He has been detained in Iran since February 24.
With our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Benazet
Olivier Vandecasteele worked in particular since 2015 in Tehran for the Norwegian Refugee Council. Returning to Belgium at the end of his humanitarian mission, he returned to Iran in February for a brief stay; he was arrested there four days later” without any legal reason “, according to the Federal Minister of Justice.
He has since been detained in the infamous Evin prison in conditions denounced by his relatives who have met the Belgian Prime Minister on several occasions. According to his relatives, he is purely and simply used as a hostage by Iran to obtain the transfer ofAssadollah Assadi.
Sentenced in Belgium to twenty years in prison for attempted terrorist assassination, during the planned attack on June 30, 2018 against the rally in Villepinte of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Assadollah Assadi used his status as a diplomat as a cover while he was actually an Iranian intelligence agent.
The Belgian Parliament had voted a treaty allowing the transfer of prisoners with Iran, but this treaty, considered scandalous by several deputies, was suspended last week by the Constitutional Court which could well cancel it.
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