Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat sentenced in February to twenty years in prison in Belgium for planning an attack against opponents of the Tehran regime in France in 2018, has appealed against his conviction, announced on Monday (March 8) the court of ‘Antwerp.
“All the accused have appealed”, said the same source in a message to Agence France-Presse (AFP). For this attempted attack against the CNRI (opponents) rally in Villepinte, near Paris, Assadollah Assadi, 49, was prosecuted for “Terrorist assassination attempts” and “Participation in the activities of a terrorist group”. Three Belgian accomplices of Iranian origin had been sentenced to terms ranging from fifteen to eighteen years in prison, as well as forfeiture of their Belgian nationality.
This dossier, combining terrorism and espionage, had sparked diplomatic tensions between Tehran and several European capitals, including Paris. The Iranian regime had warned ahead of the judgment that it would not recognize it, affirming that the procedure opened by the Belgian justice was not “Not legitimate, due to diplomatic immunity” by M. Assadi. The targeted opponents, for their part, denounced a project under the “State terrorism”.
Iranian intelligence agent
A bomb attack was to target on June 30, 2018 in Villepinte, near Paris, the large annual gathering of the National Council of Iranian Resistance (NCRI), a coalition of opponents including the People’s Mojahedin (MEK).
The same day, a Belgian-Iranian couple domiciled in Antwerp was arrested by the Belgian police near Brussels in possession of 500 grams of TATP explosive and a detonator in their car. The arrest took place in extremis, and the gathering was able to be held with its prestigious guests, of whom twenty were civil parties in the proceedings alongside the NCRI (among others, the Franco-Colombian and ex-hostage of the FARC Ingrid Betancourt).
While stationed at the Iranian Embassy in Vienna at the time, Mr. Assadi was arrested on 1er July in Germany, where investigators believed he no longer enjoyed diplomatic immunity. The latter were in possession of images showing him on June 28 in Luxembourg delivering a package containing the bomb to the Belgian-Iranian couple.
Incarcerated in Germany, the diplomat was handed over to Belgium in October 2018. He had refused to be taken out of cell to appear on November 27, 2020. According to the prosecution, the investigation showed that Assadi was, in fact, an Iranian intelligence agent. “Acting under diplomatic cover” and that he had coordinated this terrorist project by relying on three accomplices, the couple domiciled in Antwerp as well as a former Iranian dissident poet exiled in Europe.
The couple’s wife, Nasimeh Naami, 36, was sentenced to eighteen years in prison and her partner, Amir Saadouni, 40, to fifteen years. Former dissident Mehrdad Arefani, 57, presented as an Iranian intelligence agent operating from Belgium, was sentenced to seventeen years in prison.
