Belgian Constitutional Court suspends controversial treaty with Iran
Crowd waving Iranian flags and confetti after the trial of diplomat Assadollah Assadi at the courthouse in Antwerp, Belgium, February 4, 2021. AP - Virginia Mayo
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Included in a law of July 20, 2022, this Belgian-Iranian treaty is considered by its detractors as paving the way for the transfer to Tehran of an Iranian diplomat convicted of terrorism in Belgium in 2021.
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"
There is for the moment no longer any legal basis allowing this transfer
", rejoiced with AFP the lawyer François Tulkens, who, on behalf of Iranian opponents, had challenged before the high court a Belgian law of July 30, 2022 including this treaty.
The "
suspension
" of this law is a preliminary step to a possible censorship, on which the Court will have to rule within three months, specified the lawyer.
The diplomat Assadollah Assadi, considered an Iranian intelligence agent, was
sentenced in February 2021
by the Belgian court in Antwerp to 20 years in prison.
He was found guilty of having fomented with the help of Belgian-Iranian accomplices a project of bombing which was to target the large annual gathering in France of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) on June 30, 2018. , a coalition of opponents of the Tehran regime.
Iran strongly denounced this legal procedure, considering in particular that Belgian justice had violated the diplomatic immunity of Mr. Assadi.
The latter was at the time of the alleged offenses stationed at the Iranian Embassy in Vienna.
No appeal filed by Assadollah Assadi
But Assadollah Assadi did not appeal the Antwerp judgment, making his conviction final.
And in the summer of 2022, a controversy erupted in Belgium when the Minister of Justice, Vincent van Quickenborne, presented to Parliament, for an emergency vote, a treaty concluded in March between Belgium and Iran “
relating to the transfer of sentenced persons
”.
The minister presented this text as the only way to free Olivier Vandecasteele, a Belgian humanitarian arrested without reason in Tehran on February 24.
► To read also: An Iranian sentenced in Belgium soon the subject of an exchange of prisoners with Tehran?
Conversely
, the NCRI, which was a civil party to the Antwerp trial, considered the treaty to be “
tailor
-made ” to hand over Mr. Assadi to Tehran, with a view to a probable pardon.
Several new actions have been brought before the Belgian courts.
In its judgment delivered Thursday, the Constitutional Court agrees with the Iranian opponents, considering that the treaty represents for them "
a risk of serious and difficult to repair damage
".
Without mentioning Assadi's name, the judgment also stipulates that “
Belgium knows or must know that
”, if the treaty is applied to transfer an Iranian convicted of terrorism, “
Iran will not effectively execute this sentence
”.
NCRI President Maryam Rajavi hailed "
a victory
" in a statement.
(
With
AFP)
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