A Belgian aid worker jailed in Iran and an Iranian diplomat imprisoned in Belgium were freed yesterday in an exchange mediated by Oman, both sides said.
Aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele was arrested on a visit to Iran in February 2022 and sentenced in January to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes on charges including spying.
Iranian diplomat Asadollah Assadi was convicted in Belgium in 2021 in connection with a foiled bomb plot in France and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Both countries rejected the charges against their citizen as fabricated.
“As I speak, Belgium’s Olivier Vandecasteele is on his way to Belgium. If all goes to plan, he’ll be with us in the evening. Free at last,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said yesterday.
“Last night Olivier was flown to Oman where he was looked after by a team of Belgian soldiers and diplomats. This morning he underwent medical examinations to assess his state of health and to enable him to return in the best possible conditions,” De Croo added.
Iranian state TV reported that Assadi had arrived back in Tehran and showed him sitting with officials including government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian described Assadi in a Twitter post as “our country’s innocent diplomat who was illegally arrested against international law”.
The exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran, whose rally near Paris was the bomb plot’s target, said the release of Assadi 15 years before the end of his sentence encouraged terrorism.
It also said his release violated the judgment of Belgium’s Constitutional Court that said the government had to inform victims before the transfer so that they had a chance to take it back to court.
Oman’s foreign ministry said earlier an agreement had been reached under which prisoners were released and transported from Brussels and Tehran to Muscat, in preparation for their repatriation.
A treaty took force last month under which Belgian prisoners in Iran can serve their sentences at home and vice versa.
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