Belgian aid worker and Iranian diplomat freed in prisoner swap deal

Iran has released a Belgian aid worker who was held on espionage charges in exchange for the release of one of its diplomats accused of a failed attempt to bomb an Iranian protest gathering in France.

The pair were swapped in Oman on Friday following a deal brokered by the Gulf nation. Aid worker Olivier Vandecastelle, arrested in 2022, was sentenced to 40 years in prison, while Iranian diplomat Assadullah Asadi was sentenced to 20 years in 2021 after pleading guilty in connection with a 2018 bomb plot in Belgium.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in a post on Twitter that “innocent” Asadi is “coming back to his home” and will return to the Islamic Republic shortly.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Crew said on Friday: “Olivier Vandekasteel is on his way to Belgium. If everything goes according to plan, he will be with us this evening. Free at last.”

He said Vandecastille was taken to Oman on Thursday, where “he was looked after by a team of Belgian soldiers and diplomats”. There he also underwent medical examinations “to assess his state of health and enable him to return under the best possible conditions”.

A prisoner exchange treaty between Belgium and Iran was due in 2022 and was upheld by Belgium’s constitutional court this spring. Belgium has rejected the Iranian accusations against Vandecastelle, and De Crew reiterated the aid worker’s innocence on Friday.

Dozens of European citizens are believed to have ended up in Iranian prisons in recent years, according to Western diplomats in Tehran, some to later be traded for Iranian prisoners in other countries.

Asadi was at the top of the list of people Iran wanted to exchange. There is also Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian judiciary official who was sentenced to life in prison last year for war crimes by a Swedish court. Iran is willing to exchange a Swedish-Iranian national accused of spying for Israel, according to Western diplomats.

At least three dual Iranian-American citizens have been languishing in Iranian prisons for several years. The Islamic Republic has said it could be swapped with Iranian prisoners in the US, without clarifying who the Iranians are. Iranian analysts and Western diplomats say Iran has also linked his release to the release of some $7 billion in Iranian petrodollars stuck in South Korean banks due to US sanctions.

Oman and Qatar are trying to ease tensions between the Islamic republic and the West over the fate of prisoners held in the prison. Oman’s foreign ministry said earlier on Friday that an agreement had been reached under which prisoners from Tehran and Brussels would be taken to their capital, Muscat, to be repatriated.