ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) – Iranian diplomat identified as undercover secret agent was convicted in Belgium on Thursday for plotting a failed bomb attack on an Iranian opposition group exiled in France and sentenced to 20 years in prison, a result legal that outraged Tehran.
A Belgian court rejected the claim of diplomatic immunity of the Vienna-based official. The officer, Assadollah Assadi, challenged the charges and refused to testify during his trial last year, citing his diplomatic status. He did not attend Thursday’s hearing in Antwerp court.
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 attorney Dimitri De Beco said Assadi would likely decide to appeal the verdict and sentence. Three other defendants were also found guilty and received lengthy prison sentences after the court ruled that they belonged to the same network.
During the trial, the plaintiffs’ lawyers and representatives of the opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, claimed without offering evidence that the diplomat initiated the attack by direct orders of the highest Iranian authorities. Tehran has denied having a hand in the plot.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh condemned the court rulings and said Iran did not recognize the ruling because it considers Belgian proceedings against Assadi to be illegal.
The Antwerp court rejected Assadi’s claims of individual immunity and said the case did not violate the principles of state immunity, as neither Iran nor an Iranian security service were prosecuted.
In his ruling, he made it clear that Iran was not on trial, but insisted that the accused quartet was part of a cell operating by Iranian intelligence services that collected information about the group. of the opposition to identify targets and organize 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 in whether it should rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal. between Tehran and the 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 withdrawing the United States from the atomic deal in 2018.
The European Union focused its reaction on Assadi specifically and did not attract Iran as a nation. “The acts committed by this person are totally unacceptable. That is a fact. The other thing I can add is that the person in question is already on the EU’s anti-terrorism list, “said EU spokesman Peter Stano.
The Belgian government said the ruling stood alone, separate from diplomacy and international relations.
“The important thing is that today the judicial system rules on acts of terrorism and makes a clear statement. And he must be able to do so with 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 of a possible attack on the annual MEK meeting and arrested a couple traveling in a Mercedes car. In their luggage, they found 550 grams of the unstable TATP explosive and a detonator.
The Belgian pump 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 dozens of prominent guests at the rally that day were Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani; Newt Gingrich, former Conservative Speaker of the U.S. 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 that since Assadi was on holiday at the time of his arrest – and not in Austria, where he was accredited – he had no right to immunity.
A note from the Belgian intelligence and security agency seen by The Associated Press identified him as an official of Iran’s intelligence and security ministry operating secretly at the Iranian embassy in Austria. . Belgian state security officials said he worked for the ministry’s so-called Department 312, the internal security directorate, which is on the list of European Union 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 was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
According to the investigation, Assadi took the explosives to Austria on a commercial flight from Iran and later handed the bomb over to the couple during a meeting at a Pizza Hut restaurant in Luxembourg. The ruling 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 the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, an exiled Iranian opposition group based in Albania and Paris.
It was formed in 1965 by university students who adopted both Marxism and Islamic governance while seeking to overthrow the ruling shah. He has been accused of killing Americans in the 1970s and later of murder and bombing, attacks in which the group now denies being involved.
They were expelled from Iran in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and 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, paying tens of thousands of dollars in fees to American politicians. The MEK says it renounced violence in 2001.
The leader of the organization, Maryam Rajavi, welcomed the ruling and reaffirmed her claims that Assadi’s plan had been approved by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“The time has come for the European Union to take action,” he said, urging EU countries to retake 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.