Iran releases Belgian aid worker in prisoner exchange

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: VALERIA MONGELLI / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 15:25 pm, May 26, 2023

Belgian humanitarian Olivier Vandecasteele, detained in Iran for 455 days, was released Friday after an exchange with an Iranian diplomat convicted in 2021 of terrorism. "Free at last!" said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, without mentioning the prisoner exchange. "As I speak to you, Olivier Vandecasteele is on his way to Belgium. If everything goes according to plan, he will be with us tonight," he added, expressing his immense "relief". For its part, the Sultanate of Oman, which plays the role of mediator between Tehran and Western countries, explained that this humanitarian had been released as part of an "exchange" between Iran and Belgium.

'A shameful ransom'

The Iranian detainee is Assadollah Asadi. This diplomat, at the time stationed in Vienna, was found guilty of having fomented a plan of bomb attack that was to target on June 30, 2018 a rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI, coalition of opponents) in Villepinte, near Paris. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in February 2021 by a Belgian court, much to the chagrin of Iran, which denounced a violation of his diplomatic immunity. "Assadollah Assadi, an innocent diplomat of our country, who was illegally detained in Germany and Belgium for more than two years in violation of international law, is now on his way back to his country," Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Twitter, thanking Oman.

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Members of the Iranian opposition in exile, who tried, unsuccessfully, to oppose this exchange, immediately denounced this outcome, judging that Belgium had paid "a shameful ransom". "This will encourage the religious fascism in power in Iran to continue its crimes," the NCRI said. A treaty on the mutual transfer of convicts signed in 2022 between Belgium and Iran and entered into force on 18 April had paved the way for this exchange. Several dozen Westerners are detained in Iran, described by their supporters as innocent people used by Tehran as a means of pressure and bargaining chips.

'Unspeakable psychological torture'

Arrested on 24 February 2022 in Tehran, Olivier Vandecasteele, 42, had been convicted of "espionage". His family has since denounced the ill-treatment inflicted on him, evoking the "unspeakable psychological torture" suffered by this man, "innocent hostage of a legal-political battle" between Iran and Belgium. The conditions of his detention amount to "torture", accused Alexander de Croo at the end of April before the Chamber of Deputies. "He sleeps and eats on the floor, does not have enough access to medical care (...), the light never goes out in his cell."

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Vandecasteele's release comes two weeks after that of two French nationals, Benjamin Brière, 37, who was incarcerated for three years in Mashhad prison in northeastern Iran, and French-Irish Bernard Phelan, 64, who spent seven months in detention. Thirty-five nationals of a dozen EU member states, including four French, are still detained in Iran, according to French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.