State media says Belgium has sentenced Asadollah Assadi to a 20-year jail sentence in a politicised case.
Tehran, Iran – Iranian state media says Belgium sentenced an Iranian diplomat to a 20-year jail sentence with inadequate proof, in what they've branded a politicised case.
Asadollah Assadi, the third secretary of Iran’s embassy in Austria, was sentenced to twenty years in jail in February 2021 by a courtroom in Antwerp, Belgium.
Assadi, 50, was accused by the Belgian authorities of organising – on behalf of Iranian intelligence – three accomplices to plant a bomb at a gathering of the Folks’s Mojahedin Group of Iran (also referred to as the Mujahedin-e Khalq or MEK), a Europe-based opposition group, in Villepinte close to Paris in June 2018.
Assadi was discovered responsible by a Belgian courtroom and sentenced to twenty years.
The sentence was confirmed in Might 2021 after Assadi refused to file an attraction, as he has contested the legitimacy of the Belgian justice system.
State-run IRNA information company final week mentioned Asadollah Assadi’s trial and sentencing was “a very preplanned situation” constructed on shaky grounds. The semi-official Tasnim information company revealed the same report during which it mentioned that the MEK had framed Assadi.
“Primarily based on reviews from Assadi’s legal professional, the function of this terrorist organisation [MEK] in forging a case in opposition to the Iranian diplomat is obvious – particularly because it got here when Iran’s president was on a go to to Austria,” Tasnim mentioned, referencing former President Hassan Rouhani’s July 2018 journey to the European nation.
Each retailers revealed photographs of purported proof and sought to painting how the MEK was concerned.
Iran has designated the organisation a “terrorist” group, after the group carried out bombing assaults and assassinations, in addition to attacking Iran with navy assist from Saddam Hussein throughout the eight-year Iran-Iraq Battle within the Nineteen Eighties.
Assadi’s alleged accomplices, 41-year-old Amir Saadouni, 37-year-old Nasimeh Naami, and 58-year-old Mehrdad Arefani, have testified in opposition to him. Assadi has maintained that he doesn't know them.
Belgian authorities say Saadouni and Naami, a Belgian couple of Iranian origin, have been carrying 500 grammes of triacetone triperoxide (TATP) explosives and a detonator of their car on their solution to Villepinte on the time of their arrest in Belgium in 2018.
Arefani was arrested concurrently in Villepinte. On the request of Belgian authorities, Assadi was arrested in Germany, the place he didn't have diplomatic immunity.
The newest growth within the case got here earlier this month when a Belgian courtroom dismissed the three alleged accomplices’ appeals.
The courtroom upheld Naami and Arefani’s respective sentences of 18 and 17 years in jail and elevated Saadouni’s sentence from 15 to 18 years.
“Every little thing was meticulously ready beforehand and the modus operandi for use was additionally mentioned intimately,” the courtroom mentioned, in keeping with Belgian media, additionally ruling there was little doubt that Assadi and the three alleged accomplices labored for Iranian intelligence.
MEK claims
The Iranian media retailers have mentioned the alleged accomplices have been brokers of the MEK, a declare the organisation has beforehand denied.
However MEK supporters frequently staged gatherings and protests in entrance of Belgian courts the place the defendants have been current, had a delegation current within the courtroom, and known as on authorities to shut down Iranian embassies and expel diplomats.
The semi-official Tasnim web site revealed photographs purportedly exhibiting Saadouni and Naami at an undated MEK rally.
It additionally revealed purported courtroom paperwork exhibiting that Assadi argued throughout his courtroom periods in Antwerp that the Nationwide Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the umbrella organisation of the MEK, is a “terrorist” organisation.
In response to the paperwork, the courtroom finally dominated that it mustn't make an evaluation in regards to the ethical grounds of the organisation since “neither the organisation nor its sister organisations are on trial right here”.
Tasnim additionally pointed to occasions in 2003 when, beneath orders, a number of MEK members self-immolated in numerous European capitals to protest the arrests of their chief Maryam Rajavi and others on costs of cash laundering and fraud that have been finally dropped.
The European Union and the USA beforehand listed MEK as a “terrorist” organisation. After promising to resign violence, it was delisted by the EU and the US in 2009 and 2012 respectively.
Iran questions proof
In the meantime, the Iranian authorities’s web site has revealed the picture of a purported German police report detailing objects present in Assadi’s car when he was arrested in Bavaria whereas on vacation.
The report makes no point out of residue from an explosive system, whereas IRNA mentioned the TATP Assadi had allegedly handed to his accomplices ought to have left a hint.
When contacted by Al Jazeera, the Bundeskriminalamt – the German Federal Felony Police – neither confirmed nor denied the accuracy of the report, saying it can not disclose details about the case to 3rd events.
IRNA additionally claimed that no traces of explosives or unlawful possessions have been discovered at Assadi’s residence in Vienna.
The outlet additionally referenced a 2019 interview with the Osterreich Heute newspaper, during which an Austria Airways spokesperson denied claims by Belgian authorities that Assadi had carried bomb elements in a diplomatic case on board a industrial aircraft.
The Austrian international ministry was contacted by Al Jazeera for touch upon this story however didn't reply.
Nonetheless, an Austria Airways spokesperson informed Al Jazeera that their spokespersons from 2019 are not with the corporate, so they can't verify or deny whether or not the interview befell. They declined to touch upon the corporate’s present stance on the claims made by the prosecutor in Assadi’s Belgian courtroom case.
Lastly, IRNA revealed photographs that purported to point out the Belgian intelligence and safety service had tried to hack and acquire entry to Assadi’s administrative e-mail tackle, which belongs to the Iranian international ministry.
A spokesperson for the Belgian international ministry informed Al Jazeera: “The Ministry of Overseas Affairs gained’t be reacting to this story”.
Strained relations
The case of Assadi and the allegation that Iranian intelligence was behind the bombing plot proceed to pressure Iran’s relations with European international locations, a few of that are additionally concerned in efforts to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear cope with world powers.
Iran has repeatedly condemned European international locations for internet hosting the MEK, which moved its base from Iraq to Albania over the past decade and holds occasions throughout the continent.
For its half, the Iranian international ministry has maintained that Assadi’s case constitutes a violation of the Vienna Conference on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, as Iran claims Assadi was an harmless diplomat who was arrested regardless of his diplomatic immunity. Nonetheless, as Belgian authorities discovered Assadi responsible of organising a bomb plot, they don't consider he ought to take pleasure in diplomatic immunity.
Iran additionally summoned Belgium’s envoy in Tehran after Assadi’s arrest to specific its sturdy condemnation in February 2021.
A number of European international locations have condemned the arrest of their residents or twin nationals of Iranian origin over the previous few years, totally on costs associated to espionage, denouncing the costs as arbitrary.
Earlier this month, France strongly condemned the arrest of two of its residents on costs of fomenting lecturers’ protests.
One other ongoing contentious case includes prisoners in Iran and Sweden.
Iranian-born Swedish educational Ahmadreza Djalali is awaiting execution in Iran on costs of spying for Israel resulting in the assassination of nuclear scientists.
Iranian officers have dominated out an trade of prisoners, saying Djalali’s sentence is “ultimate”.
Amnesty Worldwide mentioned there was mounting proof Iran was conserving Djalali hostage in an effort to drive Belgium and Sweden handy over Assadi and one other ex-official, Hamid Nouri.
“The Iranian authorities are utilizing Ahmadreza Djalali’s life as a pawn in a merciless political sport, escalating their threats to execute him in retaliation for his or her calls for going unmet,” Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty’s deputy director for the Center East and North Africa mentioned on Might 19.
In the meantime, Iran’s international ministry earlier this month summoned Sweden’s envoy to strongly protest a life imprisonment sentence for ex-official Hamid Nouri, who's accused of human rights abuses.
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