Belgian aid worker and Iranian diplomat released in prisoner exchange

Iran has released a Belgian aid worker jailed in Tehran for 455 days on espionage charges in exchange for Belgium’s release of a former Iranian diplomat convicted in 2021 of a foiled bomb plot.

The aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, was flown late Thursday from Tehran to Muscat, Oman’s capital, where the exchange took place, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Friday.

“At the moment, our compatriot Olivier Vandecasteele is on his way to Belgium,” Mr De Croo said in a video address from Brussels, confirming that the government had secured Mr Vandecasteele’s release. He added that Mr Vandecasteele had undergone medical examinations to assess his health after more than a year “under very difficult circumstances”.

Mr. Vandecasteele worked in Iran for five years until he lost his job in March 2021 and left the country. When he returned to collect some belongings in February last year, he was arrested by Iranian authorities, who sentenced him to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes on charges of espionage, money laundering and currency smuggling. The Belgian government called Mr Vandecasteele’s imprisonment arbitrary and said Iran had not provided information on the case.

In exchange for Mr Vandecasteele’s release, Oman negotiated the release of Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat who arrested in Germany in 2020 on charges of plotting to bomb a gathering of Iranian opposition leaders in France in 2018. He was later sentenced to 20 years in prison in Brussels in 2021.

Asadollah Assadi, “our country’s innocent diplomat, who was illegally detained in Germany and Belgium for more than two years in violation of international law, is now on his way back to his homeland,” Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir, said. —Abdollahian, in a statement posted to Twitter on Friday.

The Belgian parliament approved a much-criticized treaty with Iran in July last year allowing exchanges of prisoners between the two countries. Critics of the treaty said the country was indulging in a form of blackmail from Iran that puts foreigners at greater risk of being held hostage.

Koba Ryckewaert And Leily Nikounazar reporting contributed.