Belgium’s justice minister announced on Tuesday that Iran has been holding a Belgian for four months on charges of “espionage” as Brussels looks into a controversial prisoner-swap deal with Tehran.
Minister Vincent van Keukenborn told Belgian MPs that Iran arrested a European citizen on February 24 and he has since been “illegally” detained without revealing his identity. Last year, Belgium sentenced an Iranian diplomat to 20 years in prison after he was convicted on “terrorism” charges amidst planning a 2018 Paris attack. – Elderly Belgian, former aid worker detained in Iran. And it is likely that the Belgian’s arrest is “a continuation of Tehran’s prevailing behavior of arresting foreign citizens and taking them hostage in order to exchange them for Iranians in prisons in Western countries.” Among those detained in Iran is the Iranian-Swedish academician Ahmad Reza Jalali, who taught at one of the universities in Brussels. Iran also accused him of “espionage” and sentenced him to death. Keckenborn said staff at the Belgian embassy in Tehran visited the imprisoned Belgian twice to provide him with all possible assistance, and that his family had announced earlier Tuesday that he had been arrested. “I can’t say more at the request of the family,” the minister said. On Thursday, the Belgian parliament will vote to ratify a treaty with Iran that will open the door to a prisoner swap between the two countries. “If the treaty is not fully ratified, the threat to our Belgian interests and to some Belgian citizens will increase,” Keckenborn said on Tuesday, presenting the treaty to lawmakers for discussion. But some US lawmakers are pushing for Belgium to back out of a proposed treaty signed in March. “I am shocked to learn that the Belgian government has entered into an agreement with the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism and plans to send Iranian terrorists to Iran to plan new terrorist attacks,” Texas Republican Representative Randy Webber tweeted.
Diplomat “terrorist”
As for the imprisoned Iranian diplomat Assadollah Asadi, in February 2021, a Belgian court sentenced him to twenty years in prison, finding him guilty, inter alia, of “attempted terrorist attacks” and “participation in the activities of a terrorist group.” ”
He was convicted of supplying explosives for the June 30, 2018 attack near Paris, which targeted the annual meeting of Iran’s National Resistance Council in Villepinte, near Paris. This council is a coalition of opponents of Iran, the main component of which is the Mujahideen People’s Organization (Khalq).
And information provided by several European intelligence agencies allowed Belgium to thwart the attack after it intercepted a car carrying explosives. A two-year conspiracy investigation concluded that Asadi was an Iranian agent operating under diplomatic cover. Assadi was arrested in Germany, where he was believed to lack diplomatic immunity because he was linked to the Iranian embassy in Austria. He was extradited to Belgium for trial.
He decided not to appeal his sentence. Tehran rejects the conviction. Lawyers for Iran’s National Resistance Council said the Belgian-Iranian treaty is intended to allow Assad to return to Iran. The dispute over the Belgian treaty comes as European powers seek to bring Iran and the US back to the 2015 nuclear deal. Former US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal in 2018. Iran has subsequently accelerated uranium enrichment. to a level close to the possible production of nuclear weapons.
