TEHRAN – Iranian diplomat Assadollah Asadi returned home Friday after five years of “being held hostage” in Belgium on trumped-up charges.
Government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi and Secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights Kazem Gharibabadi were on hand to receive Asadi upon arrival at Mehrabad airport.
Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian said the “innocent” diplomat “illegally detained in Germany and Belgium against international law” was freed after Muscat mediated a deal between Iran and Belgium to swap prisoners.
Earlier, the foreign ministry of Oman had said the freed individuals were transported from Brussels and Tehran to its capital, Muscat, in preparation for their return to their respective countries.
“The Sultanate of Oman appreciates the positive high-level spirit that prevailed during the discussions in Muscat between the Iranian and Belgian sides, and their commitment to resolving this humanitarian issue,” a ministry statement said.
Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo confirmed that Olivier Vandecasteele was also due to arrive in Belgium.
In January, Iran sentenced Vandecasteele to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes after convicting him of espionage. He also was fined $1 million.
Vandecasteele had operated under the guise of working for a number of humanitarian organizations.
Asadi’s release is the “outcome of efforts by responsible authorities to defend the rights of their fellow citizens abroad,” said Gharibabadi, promising to continue such efforts.
Asadi’s case, according to legal experts, was based on sham and unsubstantiated charges and smacks of political propaganda against the Islamic Republic.
In June 2018, Belgian authorities said the country’s police had intercepted a car transporting homemade explosives, claiming the Iranian diplomat handed the material to two people in Belgium. He was accused of plotting an attack against the terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), a claim dismissed by Iranian authorities.
A Belgian court then sentenced the diplomat, who serves as the third counselor at Iran’s embassy in Vienna, to 20 years in prison.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said Assadi had been “taken hostage” during a plot designed by the occupying regime of Israel and collusion of some European intelligence services.
“The Zionist-American ‘big lie’ scenario went on stage with the aim of creating crisis in relations between Iran and Europe and this plot happened right after the US withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran,” he said.
Kanaani said some European governments, influenced by the Zionist regime and the MKO, violated international law by arresting and sentencing Asadi to 20 years in prison after a “political and sham trial”.
Iran had always protested and condemned the violation of Asadi’s diplomatic immunity and tried hard to free him, Kanaani said, adding that an agreement was reached to release Asadi following negotiations between foreign ministers of Iran and Belgium.