ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) – An Iranian diplomat identified as an undercover secret agent was convicted Thursday in Belgium for being the mentor of a frustrated bomb attack on an Iranian opposition group exiled in France and sentenced to 20 years in prison, a court decision that infuriated Tehran.
A Belgian court dismissed the Vienna-based official’s claim of diplomatic immunity. The officer, Assadollah Assadi, contested the charges and refused to testify during his trial last year, invoking his diplomatic status. He did not appear on Thursday at the Antwerp court.
Prosecutors requested a maximum 20-year prison sentence on charges of attempted terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group.
Defense lawyer Dimitri De Beco said Assadi will likely decide to appeal the verdict and sentence. Three other defendants were also found guilty and received lengthy prison sentences after the court ruled that they belonged to the same network.
During the trial, lawyers for the plaintiffs and representatives of the opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, claimed, without providing evidence, that the diplomat set up the attack by direct order from the highest Iranian authorities. Tehran has denied participation in the plot.
An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, condemned the court’s decisions and said Iran did not recognize the sentence because it considers Belgian proceedings against Assadi to be illegal.
The Antwerp court dismissed Assadi’s claims of individual immunity and said the case did not violate the state’s immunity principles, since neither Iran nor an Iranian security service has been tried.
In his decision, he made it clear that Iran was not on trial, but insisted that the defendant quartet was a member of a cell operating for Iranian intelligence services, gathering information about the opposition group to identify targets and prepare for an attack.
Assadi’s condemnation comes at a critical time and has the potential to embarrass his country, as the government of US President Joe Biden is considering whether to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and the world powers. Iran also said last month that it expects Washington to lift the economic sanctions that former President Donald Trump imposed on the country after withdrawing the United States from the 2018 atomic deal.
The European Union focused its reaction specifically on Assadi and did not attract Iran as a nation. “The acts committed by that person are totally unacceptable. This is a fact. The other thing I can add is that the person in question is already on the EU counterterrorism list, ”said EU spokesman Peter Stano.
The Belgian government said the decision was independent, separate from diplomacy and international relations.
“What matters is that today the justice system has already ruled on facts of terrorism and has manifested itself clearly. And you should be able to do that with complete independence. Otherwise, we no longer live in a constitutional state, ”said Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne.
On June 30, 2018, Belgian police officers informed by the intelligence services about a possible attack on the MEK’s annual meeting, stopped a couple traveling in a Mercedes car. In their luggage, they found 550 grams of the unstable TATP explosive and a detonator.
The bomb disposal unit in Belgium said the device was of professional quality. This could have caused a considerable explosion and panic in the crowd, estimated at 25,000 people, who gathered that day in the French city of Villepinte, north of Paris.
Among dozens of prominent guests at the rally that day were Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani; Newt Gingrich, formerly conservative president of the US House of Representatives; and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
Assadi was arrested a day later in Germany and transferred to Belgium. The court said that since Assadi was on vacation at the time of his arrest – and not in Austria, where he was accredited – he was not entitled to immunity.
A note from the Belgian intelligence and security agency seen by The Associated Press identified him as an official in the Iranian intelligence and security ministry who operated undercover at the Iranian embassy in Austria. Belgian state security officials said he worked for the ministry’s so-called Department 312, the internal security directorate, which is on a European Union list of organizations that the EU considers terrorist groups.
Prosecutors identified Assadi as the alleged “operational commander” of the planned attack and accused him of recruiting the couple – Amir Saadouni and Nasimeh Naami – years earlier. Both were of Iranian heritage.
Saadouni was sentenced to 15 years in prison, while Naami received an 18-year sentence.
According to the investigation, Assadi carried the explosives to Austria on a commercial flight from Iran and then delivered the bomb to the pair during a meeting at a Pizza Hut restaurant in Luxembourg. The decision confirmed that the explosives were made and tested in Iran.
The fourth defendant, Mehrdad Arefani, was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Iran’s National Resistance Council is part of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, an exiled Iranian opposition group based mainly in Albania and Paris.
It was formed in 1965 by university students who embraced Marxism and the Islamic government while seeking to overthrow the ruling shah. They were accused of killing Americans in the 1970s and after murders and bombings, attacks in which the group now denies being involved.
They were expelled from Iran in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and then joined Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the battle against Iran, becoming incredibly unpopular in his country. The group has sought to rehabilitate its image in recent years, paying tens of thousands of dollars in speaking fees to American politicians. MEK says it renounced violence in 2001.
The organization’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, welcomed the decision and reaffirmed her assertions that Assadi’s plot had been approved by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“The time has come for the European Union to act,” she said, urging EU countries to summon their Tehran ambassadors in light of the decision.
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Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Angela Charlton in Paris, Raf Casert in Brussels and Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this report.