Iran agrees convict transfer treaty with Belgium

Iranian deputies approved on Wednesday August 2 a treaty on the mutual transfer of convicts between Iran and Belgium, where the ratification of the text in July had sparked a lively controversy.

The treaty has been denounced in Belgium, in particular by Iranian opponents in exile, as an open door to the surrender to Tehran of an Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, sentenced in 2021 in Belgium for terrorism.

Sentenced in 2021 to 20 years in prison

The Belgian deputies had ratified on July 20 by a large majority the Belgian-Iranian treaty providing a legal framework for an exchange of convicts between the two countries.

The Belgian government defends the project as the only way to obtain the release of a Belgian aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, arrested in Tehran on February 24.

“

,” announced Icana, the website of the Iranian parliament.

The Brussels Court of Appeal, seized by Iranian opponents in exile, suspended on July 22 any possibility for the Belgian executive power to hand over Assadollah Assadi to Iran.

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Aged 50, the latter was sentenced in February 2021 to 20 years in prison by a Belgian court.

He was found guilty of having fomented a project of bombing which was to target in June 2018 an annual gathering of Iranian opponents near Paris.

Iranian parliamentarians approved the treaty with "

", Icana reported.