Prime Minister Alexander De Croo spoke by telephone with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday, he reports on Twitter. For the Belgian, it was an opportunity to once again raise the case of Olivier Vandecasteele, a former humanitarian worker in Iran who has been detained there for more than a year now.
Convicted by the Iranian justice for espionage, during a trial widely considered by the international community as arbitrary and without respect for the rights of the defense, Olivier Vandecasteele has been at the center of the concerns of Belgian diplomacy for many months, but without visible result. so far. The Constitutional Court is expected to rule shortly on the treaty for the transfer of sentenced persons which had been concluded between Iran and Belgium in the hope, on the Belgian side, of obtaining the release of the humanitarian worker in exchange for the handover to Tehran. of a diplomat convicted of terrorism.
“My message was very clear: Olivier Vandecasteele is an innocent man and must be released immediately. In the meantime, his inhuman conditions of detention must change,” said Alexander De Croo on Wednesday.
On Monday, Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib had already met in Geneva, on the sidelines of the 52nd session of the Human Rights Council, with her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian with the same message.