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The telegraph
The Iranian diplomat skips the trial in Belgium for the failed bomb plot
An Iranian diplomat refused to appear on Friday on the first day of the trial in Belgium, where he and three others are accused of plotting to bomb an Iranian-exiled opposition meeting in France attended by five British MPs. Antwerp prosecutors accuse Vienna diplomat Assadolah Assadi and three co-defendants of conspiring to attack a 2018 meeting of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Roger Godsiff of Labor and Conservative MPs Bob Blackman, Matthew Offord, Sir David Amess and Theresa Villiers attended the event in Villepinte near Paris where US President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani gave the speech of opening. “Had the conspiracy not been discovered, it would have been Iran’s largest state-sponsored terrorist act,” said Blackman, who is one of 25 civil parties to the case. “It is time to hold the Iranian regime responsible for its repression and its homeland and now in Europe,” he told The Telegraph. The trial is the first time that an EU state has prosecuted an Iranian official for terrorism. “I think the words ‘brave little Belgium’ are quite appropriate today,” said Rik Vanreusel, a lawyer representing the attendees at the demonstration. “We are one of the few countries that has had the courage to put such sensitive issues from a political point of view in an adequate perspective”. Mr. Assadi, 48, denies the allegations and has not cooperated with investigators. Attorney Dimitri De Beco said his client claimed diplomatic immunity. He was arrested while on vacation in Germany, where prosecutors say immunity was not enforced. The plaintiffs’ lawyers argue that diplomatic immunity cannot be used to evade prosecution if the allegations are terrorist-related, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. According to a police report obtained by Reuters, Assadi warned authorities in March that unidentified groups could carry out retaliatory attacks if he was found guilty. Tehran dismisses the charges against him as a “false flag” plot by the NCRI, which it defines as a terrorist organization. But French officials say Mr. Assadi, who was the third adviser to Iran’s Austrian embassy, was ordered by Tehran to carry out the attack. France claims that the Iranian intelligence ministry was responsible for the plot and subsequently expelled an Iranian diplomat. Belgian authorities say he gave a Belgian couple of Iranian origin half a kilogram of explosives and a detonator, which they believe he brought to Vienna from Tehran aboard a commercial flight. The explosives were found in the car of the couple, Nassimeh Naami, 36, and Amir Saadouni, 40, when they were arrested in Brussels in a joint operation involving Belgian, French and German security services. They are accused along with another alleged co-conspirator Mehrdad Arefani, 57. Their lawyers deny they planned to kill anyone at the rally, which was attended by around 25,000 people, including a delegation of 35 Britons, according to the NCRI. The NCRI is the political wing of the Mojahedin of the Iranian people, otherwise known as the MEK, which supports the overthrow of the Iranian government. The group carried out a series of attacks on the government in the 1980s. The MEK was removed from the EU and US terror blacklists in 2009 and 2012 respectively after giving up violence and following an intense lobbying effort. The trial, which could issue a verdict as early as the end of the month, could put a strain on relations between Iran and the EU. The 2015 nuclear deal promised to improve relations between Iran and the West, but European countries subsequently accused Tehran of several attacks on opponents abroad. These included two killings in the Netherlands in 2015 and 2017 and one failed murder in Denmark, in which Tehran denied involvement.
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