Belgian deputies ratified on Wednesday evening a Belgian-Iranian treaty on the transfer of convicts, strongly criticized in particular because it would allow the delivery to Tehran of the terrorist Assadollah Assadi. Several people, including victims who had become civil parties to the trial of Assadollah Assadi, as well as the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), immediately took legal action immediately following the vote in the House on Wednesday , of the Belgo-Iranian treaty on the exchange of detainees. After being dismissed by the Brussels Court of First Instance on Thursday, the plaintiffs, represented in particular by Me Georges-Henri Beauthier and Me François Tulkens, won their case on Friday on appeal.
The court “orders that the Belgian State be temporarily prohibited, under penalty of a fine of 500,000 euros, from proceeding, by any means whatsoever, with the transfer of Mr. Assadollah Assadi, born in Iran on 22 December 1971 and finally sentenced on February 4, 2021 by the Antwerp Criminal Court, from the Belgian prison where he is serving a 20-year prison sentence, to any foreign State whatsoever, and in particular but not exclusively to the Islamic Republic of ‘Iran”.
The court noted in particular that the rights of the plaintiffs “might be irreparably violated in the event of the surrender of Mr. Assadi to the Iranian authorities and this, without any adversarial debate having been able to take place”. The ban pronounced is therefore valid “until a contradictory debate can be held”. Claimants must, within 24 hours, summon the Belgian State to appear before the president of the French-speaking court of first instance in Brussels for such a debate.
The bill on the ratification of a treaty between Belgium and Iran on the exchange of detainees, was approved by a large majority, by 79 votes for, 41 once morest, and eleven abstentions, Wednesday evening in the room. Defended by the government, which presented it as the only way to free a Belgian humanitarian worker, hostage in Iran for five months, the text had already been approved by a parliamentary committee on July 6.
From the announcement of this treaty, signed on March 11, many Iranians, opponents of the political regime in place in Iran, strongly criticized it. They believe that the text paves the way for a surrender to Tehran – and a possible pardon followingwards – of Assadollah Assadi, sentenced by the Antwerp Criminal Court in February 2021 to a 20-year prison term for attempted assassination terrorist. This man was found guilty of having participated in the planning of an attack during a congress gathering thousands of people, the target of which was Iranian political refugees.
