Protesters in Washington, D.C., are hoping to sway the Belgian government into rejecting a bill that, if passed, would facilitate the transfer of a former Iranian diplomat serving a 20-year sentence for plotting a bombing back to Iran.
Assadollah Assadi, who was an employee at Iran’s embassy in Vienna, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in February 2021 for his role in an attempted bombing at a rally held by the National Council of Resistance of Iran in France in 2018. A new bill in Belgium’s parliament would send him back to Iran to serve the remainder of his sentence.
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The rally-goers, who included Iranian dissidents from all over the United States, marched around the Belgian Embassy and to the White House.
Farideh Sedighi, a protester who traveled from her California home to go to the rally, was with her husband at the 2018 rally in France, which was the target of the attempted bombing.
“I wanted to do everything that I can to be the voice against this treaty because this is not only about me, my family, my friends, Iranian people,” she told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “This treaty basically opens the door to the Iranian regime terrorism, which would be bad for everybody in the world.”
Earlier this week, Belgian lawmakers gave their initial approval to a prisoner swap that includes Assadi, according to the Jerusalem Post. The vote was a committee vote in the parliament’s lower chamber, while the upper chamber is expected to hold a final vote in the next couple of weeks.
Homeira Hesami, another participant who traveled from Texas for the rally, described the possible swap as a “mockery of justice” and “unbelievable.”
Assadi’s plot revolved around a 2018 Free Iran gathering near Paris organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political arm of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK. Belgian authorities stopped the attack after receiving a tip from the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. They pulled over a couple, 40-year-old Amir Saadouni and 36-year-old Nasimeh Naami, who were traveling in a Mercedes, and they were found with a detonator and a little more than a pound of an explosive.
The State Department is “aware” of the possible swap, a spokesperson told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday, adding that they won’t “comment on bills or treaties pending in Belgium’s legislature.”
“Iran has a long history of unjust imprisonment of foreign nationals for use as political leverage, and Iran continues to engage in a range of human rights abuses, which include large-scale arbitrary or unlawful detention of individuals, many of whom have faced torture and execution after unfair trials,” the spokesperson continued. “These practices are outrageous.”
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) expressed his “deep opposition” to the bill in an undated letter addressed to Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo that the Washington Examiner obtained on Tuesday.
“[I]t is clear that releasing Assadi to the very regime which ordered him to commit his crimes does not constitute justice for the thousands who were targeted for their fundamental right to freely express their beliefs,” the letter states. “Should this occur, it will send a clear message that state sponsors of terror can attempt or commit these attacks and be rewarded with prisoner exchanges should they kidnap innocent civilians in retaliation.”
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“Were your government’s deal with Iran to be ratified by the Belgian Parliament, it would create a troubling precedent and encourage the Iranian regime to continue to use diplomats stationed abroad as conduits for terrorism,” he added. “It would further reward Iran’s retaliatory imprisonment of dual nationals, likely exacerbating the Iranian regime’s use of this tactic.”
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), as well as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have criticized a possible deal to return Assadi to Iran. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment regarding its stance on the possible repatriation.
