Tomorrow, February 15, will mark a new stage for Olivier Vandecasteele, his relatives and his support committee, and also for the Belgian government and the Iranian opposition. Their lawyers will plead before the judges of the Constitutional Court.
During a new hearing, the court will examine the appeal for annulment once morest the law of assent to the treaty for the transfer of sentenced persons concluded between Belgium and Iran. This law had been passed in the chamber in July, then suspended on December 8 by the Constitutional Court.
Olivier Vandecasteele is a Belgian humanitarian who has been imprisoned for no reason in Tehran since February 24 in extremely difficult conditions. Held in complete isolation in the cold, he suffers from serious health problems. During each discussion with his family, he appears even more weakened.
In an attempt to free him, the Belgian government offered a legal solution. Belgium has negotiated a transfer treaty with Iran which would make it possible to exchange prisoners between the two countries on a legal basis. Theoretically, exchanging Olivier Vandecasteele for Assadollah Assadi.
An existential threat to the Iranian opposition
This Iranian was sentenced in Belgium to twenty years in prison for having planned an attack which was to target on June 30, 2018, in Villepinte, near Paris, a large gathering of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), composed of opponents to the Tehran regime.
These opponents have filed several lawsuits in the hope that this law will be canceled, because they fear that Assadollah Assadi will be free once he returns to Iran. In fact, the treaty allows the convicted person to be pardoned or pardoned. For them, transference is an existential threat.