{"id":8794,"date":"2021-02-16T13:34:16","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T10:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/?p=8794"},"modified":"2021-02-23T13:51:47","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T10:51:47","slug":"the-conviction-of-an-iranian-diplomat-exposes-tehrans-destabilizing-acts-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/monitoring-and-translation\/reports\/the-conviction-of-an-iranian-diplomat-exposes-tehrans-destabilizing-acts-in-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"The Conviction of an Iranian Diplomat Exposes Tehran\u2019s Destabilizing Acts in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On February 4, 2021, a Belgian court in Antwerp sentenced<\/a> an Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi who was attached to the Iranian embassy in Vienna, to 20 years in jail for his role in a failed bomb plot in France.  Prosecutors said he had transported the explosives for the plot on a commercial flight to Austria from Iran. The plot intended to target a rally organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The NCRI is believed to be the political arm of the organization Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MeK) that opposes the Iranian government.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several reports indicated that Assadi recruited his accomplices Amir Saadouni and Nasimeh Naami, a Belgian Iranian couple, in 2012 who both worked as Assadi\u2019s informants from then onwards. Administrator-General of Belgium\u2019s State Security Service  Jaak Raes said<\/a> that the foiled bomb plot was a \u201cstate-sanctioned operation approved by Tehran\u201d and \u201cwas not a personal initiative of Assadi.\u201d German authorities said that Assadi was extradited to Belgium where a court ordered his detention based on the evidence submitted.  As per a police document retrieved by Reuters, Assadi threatened retaliation<\/a> if he was found guilty post-investigation. Rik Vanreusel, the lawyer representing the NCRI, told<\/a> Al Arabiya News during an interview that \u201cthere was a bomb planted, or almost planted, on a gathering of the opposition of the state of Iran. That the bomb was planted by a diplomat\u2026 That this spy has recruited several other agents to perform this heinous attack and this having been done without Iran knowing, to me, is impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, after initial investigations, France concluded<\/a> that Iran\u2019s Ministry of Intelligence was involved in the failed bomb attack. Several top-level politicians and diplomats were present at the rally including Rudy Giuliani, former US President Trump\u2019s personal attorney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belgium\u2019s military bomb disposal squad (DOVO) released a report explaining in detail how the explosives were carried along with the antenna, batteries, and transmitter. Saadouni and Naami confessed that they had received a package from Assadi but denied knowledge of its contents. Along with the couple, Mehrdad Arefani, a Belgium-based Iranian poet, was also arrested for his role in the plot. While the court sentenced Saadouni and Naami to 18 years and 15 years in prison respectively, Arefani was handed down a 17-year prison sentence.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n


The Iranian government has misused its diplomatic channels  to carry out such attacks and has repeatedly violated several clauses<\/a> of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR), 1961. Iran has also used its embassies to spy on host countries and also to interfere<\/a> in their domestic affairs. Article 41 of the VCDR categorically states that \u201cwithout prejudice to their privileges and immunities, it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State. They also have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that state.\u201d Iran has a long history of violating the Vienna Convention starting in 1979 when the US embassy was attacked and occupied by the supporters of the Iranian revolution for which the International Court of Justice held Iran accountable<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2011, the UK embassy in Tehran was attacked<\/a> by protestors who ransacked the embassy and damaged internal documents. The Iranian government did not protect the embassy premises during the attack, violating the clauses of VCDR. In 2017, Kuwait  expelled<\/a> 15 Iranian diplomats after finding links to spy networks and terrorist organizations. In another clear violation of diplomatic conventions, last year Iran arrested Rob Macaire, the British envoy to Iran. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called<\/a> the arrest a \u201cflagrant violation\u201d of international law. Recently, an Iranian diplomat Muhammed Reza Naserzadeh was arrested<\/a> in Turkey for plotting the murder of Masoud Molavi Vardanjani who was killed in Istanbul in 2019. Vardanjani was a former Iranian intelligence operative who later became a vocal critic of the Iranian government. Three months before he was shot, Vardanjani had written<\/a>, \u201cI will root out the corrupt mafia commanders\u2026Pray that they don\u2019t kill me before I do this,\u201d targeting the IRGC on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many European governments have warned Iran against plotting terrorist activities in Europe. In 2018, France and Denmark accused<\/a> Iran of assassinating an exiled leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, a separatist group wanting the secession of Iran\u2019s Khuzestan Province.  Furthermore, the Dutch government accused Iran of plotting assassinations in the Netherlands in 2019. In a written statement to the Dutch Parliament, Netherlands Foreign Minister Stef Blok said<\/a> that Dutch Intelligence services found \u201cstrong indications that Iran<\/a> was involved in the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin.\u201d These assassinations allegedly took place in 2015 and 2017 in Almere and the Hague respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During an online discussion<\/a> on the Belgian court\u2019s recent verdict, British MP Steve McCabe said that the verdict exposed \u201chow the Iranian authorities show contempt for diplomatic conventions by using their embassies and diplomatic missions to export terror.\u201d Several other European politicians also expressed their concern about how Iran uses its diplomatic missions to widen its espionage networks across Europe. Iran\u2019s role in sponsoring and plotting terrorist attacks around the world has once again become a point of contention and concern, especially after the recent cases exposed how the Iranian government is directly involved in plotting attacks in Europe\u2019s heartland, thus threatening the continent\u2019s internal security. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On February 4, 2021, a Belgian court in Antwerp sentenced an Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi who was attached to the Iranian embassy in Vienna, to 20 years in jail for his role in a failed bomb plot in France. Prosecutors said he had transported the explosives for the plot on a commercial flight to Austria from Iran. The plot intended to target a rally organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The NCRI is believed to be the political arm of the organization Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MeK) that opposes the Iranian government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":8795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5737,461,5738],"class_list":["post-8794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports","tag-an-iranian-diplomat","tag-europe","tag-iranian-diplomat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8794"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8823,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8794\/revisions\/8823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}