The Belgian Public Prosecution Service is demanding prison sentences of between 15 and 20 years for an Iranian diplomat and three other compatriots for planning a bomb attack on a conference near the French capital Paris in 2018. More than 30,000 people attended the conference of the Iranian resistance movement NCRI including US President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani.
The Iranian diplomat Assadollah A. is demanding twenty years in prison. The two perpetrators of the foiled bomb attack Amri S. and his wife Nasimeh N. should go to prison for eighteen years, according to the OM. A fourth suspect, Merhad A., is demanding 15 years in prison.
The four are on trial in Antwerp in a politically sensitive process. It is the first time that a Member State of the European Union is prosecuting an Iranian official for terrorism. The 48-year-old Iranian diplomat, who worked at the Iranian embassy in Vienna at the time, claims his diplomatic immunity and did not show up. This A. is said to have delivered a bomb to the Belgian-Iranian couple Amir S. and Nasimeh N.
The pair were intercepted by the police in Brussels on June 30, 2018 with 500 grams of explosives and an ignition mechanism in the car. They would have wanted to carry out a bomb attack on a conference of the NCRI near Paris. The attack was thwarted by a collaboration of French, German and Belgian security services.
Besides Giuiliani, many other dignitaries attended the congress, including the Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and the American ex-presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. Merhad A., allegedly associated with the diplomat, was also there.
Diplomat planned attack ‘since 2015’
France has already said that the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence was behind the attack and for that reason has expelled a diplomat. Iran denies being involved in the plan and says it is a stunt by the NCRI, which Iran has designated as a terrorist organization.
NCRI lawyers say the diplomat is “a secret agent, a terrorist” and part of Iran’s intelligence ministry. He is said to have prepared the attack since 2015. The lawyers argue that diplomatic immunity cannot be used as a defense in a case of a terrorist attack.
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