Iran’s court sentenced a Belgian citizen to a total of 40 years in prison and 74 lashes for spying and other crimes on Tuesday. The sentence, reported by the semi-official Tasnim news agency and subject to appeal, is more severe than the 28-year sentence announced by the detainee’s family at the end of last year.
Olivier Vandecasteele, 41, was convicted of four crimes. The main ones are espionage for foreign intelligence services and collaboration with the United States against the Iranian clerical regime – added up, the sentences earned the Belgian 25 years in prison.
He was also found guilty of smuggling $500,000 in foreign currency and laundering that money. For the two offenses, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, 74 lashes, and a $1 million fine.
According to the BBC, Vandecasteele worked in the Middle Eastern country for six years, providing services to the Norwegian Refugee Council and other humanitarian organizations. He had left Tehran in 2021, but returned in February last year to remove the last belongings from the apartment where he lived. It was then that he was arrested and taken to Evin Prison, where several other European and American citizens are being held on suspicion of espionage.
Vandecasteele denies all charges against him. His family claims he was subjected to inhumane conditions in prison, and has repeatedly appealed to the Belgian government to release him.
Belgian Chancellor Hadja Lahbib criticized the Iranian justice sentence on social media and called the Belgian’s arrest arbitrary on Tuesday. Her portfolio summoned Tehran’s ambassador to Brussels to provide clarification, a gesture seen as a kind of reprimand in diplomacy.
Belgium alleges that Vandecasteele is being held hostage in an attempt by Tehran to force Brussels to release Iranian diplomat Asadollah Assadi, sentenced to 20 years in prison for planning a terrorist attack on an Iranian dissident rally.
In July, the Belgian parliament adopted a controversial deal with Iran that regulates prisoner exchanges. In December, however, the equivalent of the Supreme Court of the European country suspended the adoption of the measure.
The regime led by Ayataollah Ali Khamenei has increased its repression of foreigners in recent months, when a historic wave of protests broke out in the country. The dictatorship claims that the acts are encouraged by international agents, and that the harsh repression against them aims to preserve national sovereignty.
Seven French people are being held in Tehran and, in October, Iranian broadcasters aired videos in which two citizens of the nation appeared to confess to spying acts.
The demonstrations were triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, which occurred in September in the custody of the moral police. The young Kurd was detained due to the alleged incorrect use of the hijab, the Islamic veil, mandatory for women in the country.
The official version is that she died as a result of previous health problems, but family members and activists say that she was attacked and killed by agents while she was arrested. According to the activist agency HRANA, clashes between demonstrators and security forces resulted in the death of at least 507 civilians, including 69 minors, in addition to 66 police and military personnel.
Since the end of last year, the regime has also been executing participants in the demonstrations, in what analysts believe is part of the effort to curb further protests. Four people sentenced to capital punishment in actions linked to the protests have already been executed —half of them over the weekend—, and another 17 received the same sentence, increasing international pressure against the country. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said on Tuesday that the sentences amounted to “state-sanctioned murder”.
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