Iran shows its willingness to exchange prisoners with Belgium

March 6 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Government of Iran has expressed its willingness to carry out a prisoner exchange with Belgium on Monday after the Belgian Constitutional Court gave the green light to this possibility on Friday.

The Court published on Friday its rejection of the appeal filed against the extradition treaty signed with Tehran last year and thus opened the door to the release of the Iranian diplomat Asadolá Assadi, convicted of terrorism, in exchange for the Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, imprisoned in Iran. .

A spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Kanaani, has indicated that everything is already prepared to materialize the exchange. “With what has happened now, we hope that there will be a margin in the case of this diplomat,” he indicated, according to the Iranian press.

The opinion of the Belgian Supreme Court, however, also leaves the door open for the ruling to be appealed in lower-ranking courts, which could still prevent the deportation of Assadi, sentenced in 2021 to 20 years in prison for an attempted attack with bomb.

Vandecasteele for his part was arrested in Iran in February 2022 and sentenced in January to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes for a series of crimes including espionage.

In 2022 Belgium and Iran signed a treaty that would allow the return of Vandecasteele in exchange for Assadi, but in December it was suspended by the Constitutional Court until it ruled on it.

Some voices from Belgium have already criticized that this type of treaty opens the door to a “hostage diplomacy” and therefore endangers other Belgians who could be detained to reach these agreements.