Is Vandecasteele a victim of Iran deal?
The Iran deal is an agreement on a prisoner exchange between our country and Iran.
According to the newspaper De Morgen, our country concluded a deal with Iran on the exchange of prisoners in May 2021. The Iranian diplomat Assadi had been convicted of plotting a terrorist attack with us a few months earlier. Vandecasteele was still walking around freely in Iran at the time. Only last year he was arrested and sentenced to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes. So it seems that Iran is using him as a bargaining chip to get Assadi released.