Belgium’s constitutional court on Thursday suspended a prisoner exchange treaty with Iran criticized for opening the way for a bomb mastermind to return to Tehran.
Opponents of the Iranian government have questioned the deal, which they argue was “tailor-made” to allow the release of Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat sentenced to 20 years in prison last year.
An Antwerp court convicted him of supplying explosives for a botched 2018 bombing targeting a meeting outside Paris of Iran’s exiled opposition.
The Belgian government has said the treaty is the only way to secure the release of aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, who was detained in Iran in February.
The constitutional court ruled that the treaty was “suspended” pending a final decision within the next three months.
“At the moment, there is no longer any legal basis for this transfer,” Francois Tulkens, a lawyer for Iran’s opposition National Council of Resistance group, told AFP.
Assadi’s case sparked a furious reaction in Iran.
The Antwerp court ruled that he had masterminded the bomb plot under diplomatic cover as an envoy to Austria and therefore had no immunity in Belgium.
Tehran has demanded that Belgium recognize Assadi’s diplomatic status and release him.
Aid worker Vandecasteele, 41, has gone on hunger strike over “inhumane” treatment by his captors in Iran, his family said last week, expressing concern about his failing health.
He is one of several Westerners detained in Iran in what activists abroad have said is an attempt to extract concessions. Most of them also have Iranian passports.