A Belgian national was found guilty of spying and other offenses, and a court in Iran sentenced him to a total of 40 years in prison, several flogging, and financial fines.
According to the Iranian judiciary’s official news site, former humanitarian worker Olivier Vandecasteele received the preliminary sentencing on four accusations, which can be contested later.
He was sentenced to 12.5 years in jail for the two major counts, which were espionage for foreign intelligence services and “cooperating with the hostile United States government against the Islamic Republic.”
Vandecasteele received a sentence of 2.5 years in jail, 74 lashes, and a $1 million fine for “professional smuggling of foreign currency” in the amount of $500,000
Last but not least, the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced him to 12.5 years in prison after determining that he had been convicted of laundering the money he was charged with smuggling.
Since February, Vandecasteele, 41, has been detained in Iran. His family revealed last month that he was given a 28-year prison term.
Unnamed source claimed last week that he visited Iran “under the cover of humanitarian activities with the intention of spying for the hostile US government and transferring money to entities operating in anti-security domains,” according to a report on the semi-official Tasnim news website.
Vandecasteele refuted all of the allegations. The imprisonment of Vandecasteele has previously been denounced by Belgian authorities as being “illegal.”
Tehran has been accused of holding dual citizens and foreigners captive in order to exploit them as political pawns, a claim it denies.
Following the detention of an Iranian diplomat, Asadollah Assadi, in Belgium in 2018, relations between Iran and Belgium have deteriorated further. He was charged with organizing a bombing scheme in France.
Since protests broke out in Iran in the middle of September in response to the death of Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly breaking a mandatory dress code for women and later passed away in police custody, rhetoric between Iran and the West has also gotten more heated.
Sanctions have also been put in place between Tehran and the EU.
