Suffering 5 years of illegal detainment in Belgium, the Iranian diplomat Asadollah Asadi finally returned to his homeland Iran, a return that inflicted a heavy defeat on the Islamic Republic's opposition.
Asadollah Asadi was arrested in July 2018 in the German state of Bavaria while returning to his residence in Vienna, despite having political immunity. One hundred days after his arrest, Asadi was transferred to Belgium in October 2018 with an illegal sentence by the German court in Karlsruhe.
Following his transfer, the Belgian Antwerp Criminal Court illegally sentenced Asadi to 20 years in prison, contrary to his diplomatic immunity under the 1961 Vienna Convention.
The Belgian and German courts accused Asadi of giving explosives to a Belgian couple to bomb a meeting of the MKO in Paris, the very organization that killed over 17,000 people in Iran.
The detention scenario, cooked by the Israeli regime, MKO, and some European intelligence services, pursued to tarnish the relations between Iran and European countries, which was implemented right after the unilateral withdrawal of the US from the JCPOA.
After the arbitrary arrest of the Iranian diplomat, he was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment in a completely politicized command court.
Iranian diplomat receives 20-year prison term for alleged terror attempt
Of course, the Islamic Republic condemned the illegal move while taking logical positions and made its utmost to liberate the Iranian diplomat, since his arrest by the European countries was against Article 40 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Rights and thus the sheer violation of the human rights; Asadi was kept in custody for 1,789 days while being jailed for 100 days in the psychiatric prison, 28 days in the water bunker while naked, and 90 days in solitary confinement without windows.
Still, the release of the Iranian diplomat faces ebbs and flows due to the MKO elements' smear propaganda; The latest of the developments in the case happened on March 3, 2023, when the Belgian Constitutional Court rejected requests to cancel the prisoner exchange agreement with Iran, at the time the media reported that the court's ruling could lead to the exchange of Asadollah Asadi with a Belgian prisoner in Iran, Olivier Vandecasteele.
The Belgian Parliament had earlier approved the prisoner exchange agreement with Iran in July 2022, but some opposition groups opposed the agreement, making attempts to hinder its implementation; Even the representatives of the US Congress tried to disrupt the implementation of the plan.
Despite all lobbying and attempts of Iran's enemies including the MKO elements and other terrorist outfits in the European judicial bodies to prevent the release of the Iranian diplomat, Belgium and Iran finally managed to reach the exchange agreement with the mediation of Oman.
The release of the Iranian diplomat is deemed as an achievement for the Islamic Republic in the judicial diplomacy arena and a failure for the opposition groups in particular the MKO terrorist body.