Iran releases Belgian aid worker in prisoner swap

Belgian humanitarian Olivier Vandecasteele, detained in Iran for 455 days, was released on Friday after an exchange with an Iranian diplomat sentenced in 2021 for terrorism. “Finally free!” declared Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, without mentioning the exchange of prisoners. “As I speak to you, Olivier Vandecasteele is on his way to Belgium. If everything goes as planned, he will be with us tonight”, he added, expressing his immense “relief”. . For its part, the Sultanate of Oman, which plays the role of mediator between Tehran and Western countries, explained that this humanitarian had been released as part of an “exchange” between Iran and Belgium.

“A Shameful Ransom”

The Iranian detainee is Assadollah Asadi. This diplomat, at the time stationed in Vienna, was found guilty of having fomented a plan to attack with explosives which was to target on June 30, 2018 a rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI, coalition of opponents) in Villepinte, near Paris. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in February 2021 by a Belgian court, to the chagrin of Iran which denounced a violation of his diplomatic immunity. “Assadollah Assadi, an innocent diplomat from our country, who was illegally detained in Germany and Belgium for more than two years in violation of international law, is now on his way back to his country,” the minister said. of Foreign Affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, on Twitter, thanking Oman.

The members of the Iranian opposition in exile, who tried, without success, to oppose this exchange, immediately denounced this outcome, judging that Belgium had paid “a shameful ransom”. “This will encourage the ruling religious fascism in Iran to continue its crimes,” the NCRI said. A treaty for the mutual transfer of convicts signed in 2022 between Belgium and Iran and which entered into force on April 18 had paved the way for this exchange. Dozens of Westerners are detained in Iran, described by their supporters as innocent people used by Tehran as leverage and bargaining chip.

“Unspeakable psychological torture”

Arrested on February 24, 2022 in Tehran, Olivier Vandecasteele, 42, was convicted of “espionage”. His family has since denounced the ill-treatment inflicted on him, evoking the “unspeakable psychological torture” suffered by this man, “innocent hostage of a legal and political battle” pitting Iran and Belgium against each other. The conditions of his detention fall under “torture”, accused Alexander de Croo at the end of April before the Chamber of Deputies. “He sleeps and eats on the floor, does not have sufficient access to medical care (…), the light never goes out in his cell”.

The release of Olivier Vandecasteele comes two weeks after that of two French nationals, Benjamin Brière, 37, imprisoned for three years in Mashhad prison in northeastern Iran, and Franco-Irish Bernard Phelan, 64 years, who had meanwhile spent seven months in detention. Thirty-five nationals of a dozen EU member states, including four French, are still detained in Iran, according to the head of French diplomacy Catherine Colonna.