Olivier Vandecasteele arrested on fees denounced as faux whereas on a go to to Iran in February final 12 months

The distraught household of a Belgian nationwide held in Iran have appealed to their authorities to do its utmost to get him freed after he was sentenced to 40 years in jail and 74 lashes on fees together with spying that Brussels has denounced as faux.

The sentence imposed on support employee Olivier Vandecasteele, reported by the semi-official Tasnim information company, was extra extreme than the 28-year-term Belgium had reported in December.

Vandecasteele was convicted of 4 fees together with espionage towards the Islamic Republic, cooperating with Tehran’s arch-foe the USA, forex smuggling and cash laundering, Tasnim reported.

It mentioned Vandecasteele, who was arrested whereas on a go to to Iran in February final 12 months, might attraction the decision inside 20 days. Vandecasteele has denied all the costs.

Brussels and Tehran have been at loggerheads because the arrest of an Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, who was sentenced in Belgium in 2021 to twenty years in jail for a deliberate “terrorist” assault towards the Iranian opposition, the Nationwide Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an exile group against the Islamic Republic, close to Paris in June 2018..

In July, the Belgian Parliament had adopted a treaty on the switch of convicts between Belgium and Iran, which was supposed to permit the return of Olivier Vandecasteele. However this treaty was suspended in early December by the Constitutional Court docket following quite a few appeals by Iranian opponents in exile, fearing the return to Tehran and a potential pardon of Assadollah Assadi.

The Belgian overseas minister, Hadja Lahbib, condemned Vandecasteele’s “arbitrary detention” on Twitter and mentioned Iran’s ambassador to Brussels can be summoned in protest on the sentencing.

“The household is devastated by the information,” mentioned Olivier Van Steirtegem, who’s Vandecasteele’s finest pal and has been appearing because the household’s spokesperson.

“Olivier is a sufferer, a hostage,” he instructed Reuters, including that the Belgian authorities ought to do all the pieces potential to free Vandecasteele and condemn Iran’s “hostage diplomacy”.

Certainly, the Iranian authorities have elevated the variety of arrests of foreigners or twin nationals in current months, accusing Western nations of encouraging the Iranian individuals’s rebellion because the demise in detention in September of Mahsa Amini, a younger Iranian Kurdish lady who had been arrested for sporting the fallacious veil.

In November, French Overseas Minister mentioned that seven French nationals had been being held in Iran and condemned a “diplomacy of hostages”.