Olivier Vandecasteele, a Belgian humanitarian aid worker who has been unjustly imprisoned in Iran since February 2022, has been sentenced in Iran for "espionage" and "thwarting national security," the Belgian Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday.
Vandecasteele has worked for international humanitarian organisations in Iran for years and was sentenced to 28 years in prison in December 2022 after a mock trial. Until now, however, the official charges against him were unclear.
On Tuesday, the Arabic news channel Al Arabiya reported that Iran had indicted "two French nationals and a Belgian" for espionage and working against the country’s national security, based on comments made by a judiciary spokesperson to the semi-official Student News Network.
In the meantime, Belgium's Foreign Ministery has confirmed that the mentioned Belgian national is indeed Vandecasteele. "We only know of one compatriot detained in Iran and that is Olivier. So we are sure it is him."
For now, Vandecasteele's family is still waiting for the final decision of the Constitutional Court on the suspended Belgian-Iranian prisoner swap treaty. This deal could see him brought to Belgium in exchange for the convicted Iranian terrorist Assadollah Assadi (detained in Belgium).
However, the Constitutional Court suspended the treaty in early December on the grounds that it was illegal because there was a chance that Assadi would escape punishment in Iran. The court now has three months to decide on a possible final annulment of the treaty.
Vandecasteele is held in deplorable cell conditions in Iran: it is currently freezing and snowing in Iran, but he has no heating and only wears a T-shirt. He hardly has any contact with his family.
