BRUSSELS (Dispatches) -- Belgium’s Constitutional Court has upheld a prisoner exchange treaty with Iran that could lead to an Iranian diplomat being swapped for a Belgian inmate.
Belgian lawmakers cleared the treaty in July but it has been held up by legal challenges from a terrorist anti-Iran group.
“The Court rejects the action for annulment,” the constitutional court said in a press release.
Olivier Vandecasteele, arrested while on a visit to Iran in February 2022, was sentenced in January to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes on charges including spying.
Iran has called for the release of Assadollah Assadi, sentenced to 20 years in prison in Belgium in 2021 over trumped-up charges brought up by MKO terrorists.
Iran has called terrorism allegations against the Iranian diplomat a “false flag” stunt.
The MKO is responsible for the martyrdom of around 12,000 Iranians through acts of terror since the 1979 victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.
Following the sentencing, Iran’s foreign ministry strongly condemned the jail term as completely unlawful, in violation of Assadi’s diplomatic immunity, and a result of Belgium’s falling under the influence of the MKO.
“Unfortunately, Belgium and some European countries have taken such illegal and unjustifiable actions under the influence of the atmosphere that has been created by the hostile MKO terrorist group on Europe’s soil,” the ministry said at the time.
Belgium’s parliament ratified the treaty back last July.