BRUSSELS — After two days of controversial debate, the Belgian parliament has approved a much-criticized treaty with Iran that would allow the exchange of prisoners between the two countries.
Critics of the treaty, which was ratified late Wednesday by 79 votes to 41, with 11 abstentions, say Belgium is giving in to some form of hostage-taking by Iran.
In late February, Iranian authorities arrested a Belgian aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, 41, on charges of espionage. His arrest was not made public, but on March 11, Belgium signed the prisoner exchange treaty with Iran that was ratified on Wednesday.
Mr Vandecasteele spent five years in Iran working for various non-governmental aid organizations but left in March 2021 after losing his job. He returned in February to collect his personal belongings, but was arrested and imprisoned on charges of espionage, which were unfounded, according to the Belgian government.
Mr Vandecasteele’s arrest was only revealed by his family this month.
The Belgian Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne, defended the treaty to lawmakers. “Iran is a rogue state, but we don’t choose who we talk to,” he said, stressing that freeing Vandecasteele was “our priority”.
But opposition lawmakers, led by the New Flemish Alliance, a right-wing nationalist party, said the government gave in to blackmail from Tehran and put more Belgians at risk.
Prime Minister Alexander De Croo insisted that the treaty was the only way to secure Mr Vandecasteele’s release. “Belgium will not abandon its citizens,” he said in parliament. “What are you saying to his family that we’re going to let him rot in his cell?”
According to critics, Iran pushed for the return of an Iranian diplomat who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Belgium last year for orchestrating a plot to bomb a meeting of Iranian opposition leaders in France in 2018. If the diplomat is allowed to return to Iran, he will likely be released immediately instead of serving his sentence there, critics said.
The diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, 50, was found guilty in February 2021 of organizing the conspiracy and providing explosives to a Belgian-Iranian couple to attend the annual meeting of the National Council of the Resistance of Iran, which normally hosts prominent foreign supporters. such as former FBI chief Louis J. Freeh and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York.
Assadi, the Belgian court ruled, worked for Iranian intelligence under his diplomatic cover from the Iranian embassy in Austria and thus had no immunity in Belgium.
Iran has demanded his release, and even Mr Van Quickenborne told Parliament that after Mr Assadi’s arrest, Belgium and its 200 civilians had been targeted in Iran. “From day 1, we have felt pressure from Iran and the security situation of our interests has deteriorated systematically,” he said. But he denied any direct link between the treaty and the Assadi case.
In a statement Thursday, Iran’s National Council of Resistance, which had lobbied hard against the treaty, condemned its ratification as “shameful”. Belgium’s vote, it said, would be “the greatest incentive for the religious fascism that rules Iran to ramp up terrorism and make maximum use of hostage takings for the release of its arrested terrorists and agents.”
The council is the political wing of the Mujahedeen Khalq, which aims to overthrow Iran’s Islamic government.
The treaty would allow Iranians convicted in Belgium to serve their sentences in Iran, and Belgians convicted in Iran to serve their sentences in Belgium. But the treaty also allows either side to grant amnesty, and critics say there is little doubt that Mr Assadi will be released.
Assadi, prosecutors said at his trial, brought a pound of the explosive triacetone-triperoxide and a detonator to Vienna from Iran in his luggage, then drove it to Luxembourg. There he handed it over to the Iranian-Belgian couple at a Pizza Hut on June 30, 2018. Mr Assadi was arrested at a gas station in Germany, where he had no diplomatic immunity, as he drove back to Austria.
The couple had been granted political asylum and later citizenship in Belgium. They were arrested while driving from Antwerp to Paris on the day of the rally. A fourth defendant was an associate of Mr Assadi who was to accompany the couple at the meeting.
