A Belgian court has convicted Assadollah Asadi, the third secretary of the Iranian embassy in Vienna, of plotting to bomb a MEK meeting in Paris and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

For the first time since World War II, a diplomat was arrested and tried with a bomb and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The trial of Assadollah Asadi is not the trial of an individual but the trial of a system
Assadollah Asadi, a diplomat of the Islamic Republic, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges of conspiracy and carrying out terrorist operations in Europe. This is the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic that a working diplomat has been convicted of terrorism in a European court with sufficient evidence.

The Iranian government and Mr. Asadi’s lawyers said that due to his diplomatic mission, the court had no jurisdiction to hear the charge.

But the Antwerp court did not consider Assad’s diplomatic immunity, arguing that he owed Assad’s diplomatic immunity in the country of his mission, Austria, but that he was detained in Germany and tried in Belgium.

Assadollah Asadi’s three accomplices, who had dual Iranian-Belgian citizenship, were also sentenced to between 15 and 18 years in prison, and their Belgian citizenship was revoked.

Nasimeh Naami and Amir Saadouni, two perpetrators who handed over the bomb to Assadullah Asadi in Luxembourg to work at a MEK meeting in Paris, were sentenced to 18 years and 15 years in prison, respectively.

Assadollah Asadi was also tried in court for flying a bomb made in Iran to Austria on a passenger plane, endangering the lives of all civilian passengers.