Iran has increased the sentence for Belgian national Olivier Vandecasteele from 28 years’ imprisonment to 40 years in jail and 74 lashes, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister Hadja Lahbib said the government plans to summon the Iranian ambassador Tuesday. “Belgium continues to condemn this arbitrary detention and is doing everything possible to put an end to it and improve the conditions of his detention,” she said in a statement posted on Twitter.
The new sentence constitutes a significant increase on the original sentence reported in December, which was handed down after Belgium’s highest court suspended a controversial bilateral treaty on prisoner exchanges that would have allowed Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi, convicted of attempted terrorism in Belgium, to be sent back to Tehran in return for Vandecasteele’s freedom.
Belgium’s Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne in December said Vandecasteele was imprisoned on February 24, 2022 “for a fabricated series of crimes” and had been sentenced as retribution for a 20-year jail sentence the Belgian courts imposed on Assadi in 2021.
Vandecasteele was sentenced on four charges, including spying on Iran, cooperating with the United States against Iran, currency smuggling, and money laundering, Tasnim reported, adding that he could appeal the verdict.