ANTWERP, Belgium (PA) – An Iranian diplomat identified as an undercover undercover agent was convicted in Belgium on Thursday for launching a counterattack bombing against an Iranian opposition group in exile in France and sentenced to 20 years in prison, a legal result that angered Tehran.
A Belgian court has rejected the claim of diplomatic immunity of the Vienna-based official. The official, Assadollah Assadi, disputed the allegations and refused to testify during his trial last year, citing his diplomatic status. He did not attend Thursday’s court hearing in Antwerp.
Prosecutors had sought a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on charges of attempted terrorist murder and involvement in the activities of a terrorist group.
Defense lawyer Dimitri De Beco said Assadi would likely decide to appeal the verdict and sentence. Three other defendants were also found guilty and received lengthy convictions after the court ruled that they belonged to the same network.
During the trial, the applicants’ lawyers and representatives of the opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, argued without providing evidence that the diplomat had instituted the attack on the direct orders of Iran’s highest authorities. Tehran has denied any involvement in the plot.
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, condemned the court’s decisions and said Iran did not recognize the sentence because it considered Belgian proceedings against Assadi to be illegal.
The Antwerp court rejected Assadi’s claims of individual immunity and ruled that the case did not violate the principles of state immunity because neither Iran nor any Iranian security service had been tried.
In his ruling, he said Iran was not being tried, but insisted that the defendants’ quartet is a member of a cell operating for Iran’s intelligence services, which gathers information about the opposition group to identify targets and launch an attack.
Assadi’s conviction comes at a critical juncture and has the potential to embarrass his country, as the administration of US President Joe Biden weighs whether to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. Iran also said last month that it expects Washington to lift the economic sanctions that former President Donald Trump imposed on the country after removing America from the atomic agreement in 2018.
The European Union has focused its reaction on Assadi specifically and has not attracted Iran as a nation. “The deeds committed by this person are completely unacceptable. This is a fact. The other thing I can add is that the person in question is already on the EU’s counter-terrorism list, “said EU spokesman Peter Stano.
The Belgian Government stated that the decision was on its own, separate from diplomacy and international relations.
“What matters is that today the justice system has ruled on terrorism and made a clear statement about it. And he must be able to do that in complete independence. Otherwise, we no longer live in a constitutional state, “said Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne.
On June 30, 2018, Belgian police officers informed the intelligence services about a possible attack on the annual MEK meeting, they stopped a couple traveling in a Mercedes car. In their luggage, they found 550 grams of unstable TATP explosive and a detonator.
The Belgian bomb disposal unit said the device was of professional quality. It could have caused a considerable explosion and panic in the crowd, estimated at 25,000 people, who had gathered that day in the French city of Villepinte, north of Paris.
Among the dozens of notable guests at the rally that day were Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani; Newt Gingrich, former Conservative speaker of the US House of Representatives; and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
Assadi was arrested a day later in Germany and transferred to Belgium. The court said Assadi was on holiday at the time of his arrest – and not in Austria, where he was accredited – that he was not entitled to immunity.
A note from the Belgian intelligence and security agency, seen by The Associated Press, identified him as an officer in Iran’s intelligence and security ministry, who operated undercover at the Iranian Embassy in Austria. Belgian state security officers said they work for the ministry’s so-called Department 312, the internal security directorate, which is on the European Union’s list of organizations the EU considers terrorist groups.
Prosecutors identified Assadi as the alleged “operational commander” of the planned attack and accused him of recruiting the couple – Amir Saadouni and Nasimeh Naami – years earlier. Both were of Iranian heritage.
Saadouni was sentenced to 15 years in prison, while Naami received an 18-year sentence.
According to the investigation, Assadi transported the explosives to Austria on a commercial flight from Iran and later handed over the bomb to the couple during a meeting at a Pizza Hut restaurant in Luxembourg. The decision confirmed that the explosives were manufactured and tested in Iran.
The fourth defendant, Mehrdad Arefani, was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Iran’s National Resistance Council is part of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, an exiled Iranian opposition group based largely in Albania and Paris.
It was formed in 1965 by students who embraced both Marxism and the Islamic government, while trying to overthrow the leading chess. They were accused of killing Americans in the 1970s and later of assassinations and bombings, attacks in which the group now denies involvement.
They were expelled from Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, then joined Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the fight against Iran, becoming incredibly unpopular in their country. The group has tried to rehabilitate its image in recent years by paying tens of thousands of dollars in speech taxes to American politicians. MEK says it stopped violence in 2001.
The leader of the organization, Maryam Rajavi, welcomed the decision and reaffirmed his claims that Assadi’s plot was approved by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“The time has come for the European Union to take action,” she said, urging EU countries to revoke their Tehran ambassadors in light of the ruling.
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Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Angela Charlton in Paris, Raf Casert in Brussels and Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this report.