“While Olivier Vandecasteele is still detained in Iran, new information about the case has leaked,” wrote the Belgian DH newspaper on May 8, referring to a Belgian aid worker held hostage by Iran’s regime since 2022.
The obtained documents reveal the backdrop of the Assadi affair; Olivier Vandcastel has been used as a “bargaining chip.” The documents confirm the role played by the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and describe how Brussels and Tehran negotiated their prisoner swap treaty before Olivier Vandesteel was taken hostage in Iran.
The career diplomat Asadollah Asadi, the third-highest ranking official at the regime’s embassy in Vienna, was convicted of a state terrorist act as he tried to bomb a gathering of the Iranian Resistance in France in 2018. Using a powerful explosive bomb made at the MOIS headquarters in Tehran, Assadi brought the explosives to Austria carrying a diplomatic package by a passenger plane and handed it over to his accomplices; a terrorist cell living in Belgium. Had the plot succeeded, it could have killed thousands of civilians, including dignitaries and politicians from dozens of countries.
After being arrested and tried in the lower court as well as the appeal trial in Belgium, he was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment. Assadi, who was certain he had no chance of getting away with his crime, given the undisputable documents in the case, did not appear in either of the two judicial processes. Instead, he openly threatened Belgium with terrorism on its soil during the interrogations as he knew he could rely on “backstage” deals.
Obviously, he was not underestimating the support he would receive from the Western appeasement policy.
Almost immediately after the verdict in the Antwerp Court, the most active state sponsor of terrorism accelerated its efforts, and on February 24, 2022, the regime took a Belgian citizen hostage in Iran to use him as leverage in negotiations with the De Croo administration.
Nevertheless, once the Belgian government’s deal with the regime was exposed, the Iranian Resistance started a global campaign to shed light on these shady ties and alarmed public opinion in the West. Iranians in Belgium and other European countries held demonstrations, while meetings and conferences were held in various capitals in Europe and the Americas.
Today, nearly 8 months after the Belgian court ruling, in light of the release of secret documents from the regime’s foreign ministry, the Belgian het Laatste News wrote: “Belgium and Iran first reached an agreement on a prisoner exchange, and only months later Olivier Vandecasteele was arrested as a bargaining chip.”
“The documents now show that the very first draft of the Iran-Belgian agreement was written in Tehran on April 26, 2021. A first signature by representatives of both ministries followed on May 31, 2021,” HLN added. “Remarkable: the Belgian humanitarian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele was still a free man at the time. He was detained by Iranian authorities on February 24, 2022. He was recently sentenced – in a mock trial – to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes. ‘The documents show that the agreement was tailor-made for Assadi,’ the NCRI said. ‘And that Olivier Vandecasteele has become a victim of that.’”
As the Iranian Resistance has incessantly stated, appeasing the regime in Tehran is only feeding a monster whose appetite for supremacy and destruction is endless. At the end of the day, it is upon the Iranian people and their Resistance to fight the terrorist state while exposing their appeasers in the West.
In retrospect, the Belgian MP Koen Metsu was right when he addressed the Iranian Resistance’s rally in Brussels on July 19, 2022, when he said: “You change events by raising your voice, because you are a nation. Supporting you is what matters in this campaign.”
1.Ja, wij willen onze onschuldige landgenoot zo snel mogelijk vrij.
2.Over het bevrijden van terroristen valt nooit te onderhandelen. Dit zou een levensgevaarlijk precedent zijn!
3.Sluit de Ambassade van Iran in Brussel, zolang zij onze onschuldige landgenoot gijzelen. pic.twitter.com/Wil6buq322
— Koen Metsu (@MetsuKoen) July 14, 2022
