2023-05-26 10:00:00
He then continues with a mission for Relief International. But due to differences of opinion, this one is interrupted in May 2021.
farewell party
Olivier Vandecasteele then returns to Belgium. The days pass. Then the weeks. These then become months.
In February 2022, he finally decides to return to Iran, one last time, to close the lease on his apartment and recover the belongings left there a few months earlier. The opportunity, too, to greet one last time his friends in Tehran.
But what was supposed to be the highlight of this short stay turns into a nightmare.
That evening, February 24, the atmosphere was rather pleasant in the small apartment of Olivier’s friends. The next day, the Belgian will take the plane again, in the direction of Brussels.
We chat, we laugh, we even order pizzas. But while the guests are waiting for the delivery man, armed men show up at the door.
The Belgian will never arrive the next day at the airport. And for good reason: “Olivier is kneeling and handcuffed. He does not object. He asks to be able to contact the embassy, which he is refused.“, says Olivier Van Steirtegem, his great friend who has become the family’s spokesperson.
Isolation
Taken away without further ado, placed directly in the most complete isolation, all in a place kept secret, a leaden screed closes on the humanitarian worker then 41 years old.
“We knew, however, that the situation was tense there. And he had been advised not to go back there“, told us recently a source close to the federal government.
And in fact: for some time now, relations between the two countries had deteriorated considerably following the conviction, in Belgium, of an Iranian national, Assadollah Assani, found guilty of having fomented a plan to attack against the Iranian opposition in exile.
Money change
On a few meager occasions, the prisoner met the Belgian ambassador. And three times, he receives permission, subject to strict conditions, to chat for a brief moment on WhatsApp with his family.
“Olivier was taken hostage because they (Editor’s note: the Iranians) did not get what they wanted from Belgiumconfided to us in December Nathalie, the sister of Olivier Vandecasteele. We are now 100% convinced: Olivier is a currency of exchange. As long as Iran doesn’t get what it wants from Belgium, unfortunately we won’t get our brother back.”
A few weeks later, nearly a year after his arrest, the verdict falls: Olivier Vandecasteele receives a 40-year prison sentence and 74 lashes. The reasons ? Espionage, currency trafficking and money laundering.
A way, above all, to increase a little more for Tehran the pressure on Belgium. At the expense of Olivier.
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