A diplomat from Iran was convicted in a Belgian court and sentenced to 20 years in prison Thursday on charges of attempting to orchestrate a terrorist attack against a major rally held by an Iranian dissident group near Paris in 2018.
Assadolah Assadi, who was accused of operating on orders from Iranian intelligence, was found guilty of plotting an elaborate bomb attack that ultimately got thwarted against the annual rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a group that advocates for the overthrow of the Islamic regime in Tehran.
The case — coming at a sensitive moment between the U.S., Europe and Iran over the future of the struggling Iranian nuclear deal — was the first trial in Europe of suspected terrorism by an Iranian government official since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, according to Reuters, which reported on the ruling from Belgium.
Iran, which the U.S. government has designated as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984, has denied involvement in the Assadi plot, although European authorities charged that the 49-year-old diplomat was operating a from the Iranian Embassy in Vienna when he was arrested and France has accused Iranian intelligence of involvement in the operation.
Assadi was tried in the Belgian port city of Antwerp along with the three others, who were also arrested after police foiled the 2018 plot. Agence France-Presse reported Thursday that Assadi was charged with “attempted murders of a terrorist nature” and “taking part in the activity of a terrorist group.”
Belgian-Iranian couple Nasimeh Naami, 36, and Amir Saadouni, 40, who were accused of accepting explosives and a detonator from Assadi before all three were arrested, were also sentenced Thursday. Agence France-Presse reported that Naami received an 18-year sentence and Saadouni 15 years, and that Belgium-based Iranian poet Mehrdad Arefani, who also acted as an accomplice, was sentenced to 17 years.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) claims the thwarted bombing plot was ordered by Tehran with the goal of assassinating NCRI leader Maryam Rajavi at the dissident group’s annual rally. The gathering in 2018 attracted tens of thousands of supporters, as well as dozens of former U.S. political leaders, in support of regime change in Tehran.
The NCRI hailed Thursday’s rulings.
“The conviction of the regime’s diplomat and his three accomplices in the Court of Belgium is indeed the conviction of the clerical regime in its entirety,” Mrs. Rajavi said in a statement. “This is a brilliant triumph for the Iranian people and Resistance and a heavy political and diplomatic blow to the clerical regime in Iran.”
While the Iranian government has denied involvement in the bombing plot, other observers have characterized the Assadi as a window into Iran’s nefarious international operations at a delicate moment when Tehran hopes the newly inaugurated Biden administration in Washington will loosen U.S. sanctions that the former Trump administration reimposed on Iran after pulling out of the 2015 nuclear deal.