ANTWERP, (Belgium): A Belgian court jailed an Iranian diplomat for 20 years on Thursday after convicting him of plotting the thwarted 2018 bombing of an opposition rally outside Paris.
The trial was conducted under tight security in the Belgian port of Antwerp and has further poisoned already tense relations between Tehran and European capitals.
The terrorism conviction was also claimed as a victory by cheering onlookers from the exiled National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), the opposition group that was targeted for attack.
Assadollah Assadi, now 49, was attached to the Iranian mission in Austria when he supplied explosives for an attack that was planned for a June 30, 2018 NCRI rally in France.
Belgian officers foiled the attack when they intercepted a car carrying the device, and Assadi was arrested the next day in Germany, where he was deemed unable to claim diplomatic immunity.
Three of his accomplices, dual Iranian-Belgians, were also arrested and on Thursday were given jail terms of between 15 and 18 years and stripped of their Belgian citizenship.
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