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Iran
Protesters wear clothes reading ‘Free Olivier’ during a solidarity demonstration with Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele in Brussels on December 25, 2022. Photo: AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Tehran’s revolutionary court found Belgian national Olivier Vandecasteele guilty of four charges on Tuesday and sentenced him to 40 years of jail and 74 lashes for spying, money laundering, and cooperation with the US against Iran.
Vandecasteele, 43, was detained in late February last year when he visited Tehran and was charged with spying. Belgium and his family denied the charges brought against him.
He had lived in Iran since 2015, working as country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council and then for Relief International, before returning to Belgium in 2021.
Mizan News Agency, the official outlet for Iran's judiciary, reported on Tuesday that Vandecasteele has been tried on four charges by the revolutionary court in Tehran and was found guilty of all charges.
He was sentenced to 12.5 years for spying for a foreign country against Iran and another 12.5 years for cooperation with the hostile state of the US against Iran.
On the third charge of smuggling funds of 500,000 dollars into Iran, he was found guilty and sentenced to 74 lashes, and to 2.5 years, seizure of the foreign currency, fined twice the amount of the actual funds seized.
On the fourth charge of money laundering worth 500,000 dollars, the court found him guilty and sentenced him to 12.5 years jail time and seizure of all the assets obtained as a result of the act.
Iran's judiciary has announced that Belgian air worker Olivier Vandecasteele has been sentenced to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes on four separate charges. Under Iran's law, he might serve the longest of the priosn sentences handed to him, which is 12.5 years.
— Kian Sharifi (@KianSharifi) January 10, 2023
An Iranian national Assadollah Assadi was tried in a Belgium court for plotting to bomb a gathering of Iranian exiles in Paris in 2018.
In July 2022, the Belgian parliament voted for a treaty to support the government to allow a prisoner exchange. However, the Belgian constitutional court nullified the treaty on December 8 and a few days later, news emerged that Iran has sentenced Vandecasteele to 28 years.
The Iranian judiciary said on Tuesday that the actual sentence is 40 years of imprisonment and 74 lashes.
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