Court in Belgium cancels extradition ban on Iranian terrorist
A Belgian court has provisionally lifted the ban on extraditing an Iranian convicted of terrorism to Iran. Iranian Assadollah Assadi was sentenced last year in Belgium to 20 years in prison for planning a terrorist attack on a large gathering in Paris of opponents of the Iranian regime.
Assadi was a diplomat at the Iranian embassy in Vienna at the time. Last summer, the Belgian parliament agreed to his extradition to Iran in exchange for a Belgian aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, who was arrested in Iran in February. The swap is being disputed in lawsuits and has not yet been finalized. Assadi would actually be a member of an Iranian secret service.